


When I Wake Give Me Coffee and Grace

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27807259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: COVID changes everything.Or, the “Lindsey gets COVID and Emily rushes to her side” fic nobody ever asked for.
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 84
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

It's not that unusual for Lindsey to not respond to her texts right away, not at all. Sure, most of the time her best friend responds almost immediately, but sometimes it does take her awhile. Especially if she's busy in training or spending time with her family, or hanging out with Russell. But three days was unheard of. She'd _never_ gone three days without hearing from Lindsey. And maybe it was ridiculous, what with the time difference and the COVID test results, but there's a feeling in her gut that Emily just can't ignore. An ache that says something isn't right.

The silence after the game confirms it. Because there's no way that Lindsey wouldn't be texting her—all caps and exclamation points—after a game where Emily scores her first international goal.

She checks her phone in the locker room after the match, at the hotel while she's waiting for her socially distant dinner to arrive, while she's laying in bed in the dark trying to settle down enough to fall asleep. And there's nothing. No message. No gif reaction. Not even those three little dots that say "I'm still typing just hold on, nerd."

So Emily is concerned. More than concerned, actually. She's worried. And every time she checks her phone and doesn't see a new message from her best friend in the entire world, she edges a little closer to freaking out.

Finally, she texts Mike.

And when he gets back to her—when Emily desperately opens the message to read it, she suddenly forgets how to breathe.

— — —

Mike picks her up at the airport, and she doesn't waste any time shoving her bag at him and then punching him in the arm as he struggles not to drop it.

"You dick," Emily says angrily, eyes red from a combination of too little sleep and too many tears, "you should have called me right away."

There's some solace in the fact that he goes a little pale in response to her anger, and then yelps, because she didn't pull that punch at all. "The fuck, Son?" Mike groans as he manages to shift her bag onto his shoulder and then rubs over the ache radiating out from where he imagines he'll be developing quite the serious bruise.

But Emily isn't listening. Instead she's already heading for the sliding doors that lead to the short-term parking structure, and he has to hurry to keep up with her. "Son—Em," Mike tries to get her to stop, considering she doesn't actually know where he'd parked his car, and reaches out for her arm to slow her down. She just shrugs it off, something desperate, something wounded in the action, and when Mike tries to catch her arm again, to make her stop and just _breathe_ for a second, he sees the way his sister's best friend crumples in on herself. And he wraps his arms around her, pulling Emily in for a reassuring hug.

"She didn't want me too," he tells Emily, pulling back to look at her as she sniffles a little, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "But she's okay—I promise; enough that when I tell her you cried she'll give you so much shit." And when Emily chuckles, Mike nods, a silent agreement between the two of them, a truce of sorts.

He steps away and pulls out his keys, giving her a smirk that she's seen countless times on his sister. "Thanks for finally slowing down," he says, "because I actually parked in the complete opposite direction and I really didn't want to have to walk this whole structure just because you were too pissed to ask me where to go."

— — —

The drive to the Horan homestead isn’t long, but it seems to stretch out unnecessarily for Emily, who’s biting her lip nervously in the passenger seat.

“What’s up?” Mike looks over at her at an intersection as they near the house, “you look like you swallowed a bug.”

The blonde makes a face, hesitating for a second before speaking up. “What happened?” she asks, “I mean, I know you said she was in the hospital, but what happened?”

Lindsey’s brother turns onto a street Emily recognizes, driving almost on auto-pilot. “I mean, you know she tested positive, right?”

Emily nods. “Yeah, but I guess we just all assumed she was asymptomatic?”

Mike nods. “I guess she’d probably been positive for a few days by the time she got tested,” he pulls into driveway with an expansive and well-trimmed lawn in front. “A few days after, she started to show symptoms. Mom said her cough was bad and her fever spiked—like scary high. But—“

He pauses and looks over at her. “But?” Emily prompts, digging her fingers into her thighs.

“On Wednesday, my mom noticed that her lips and fingertips were kind of bluish when she went in to take her temperature, so she called our family doctor and he wanted her admitted.” Emily makes a sound, a sharp little cry, and Mike reaches for her hand, squeezing it tight. "She's fine, really," he assures his sister's best friend, "she was in the hospital for like two days, that's it. They gave her oxygen and fluids and then kicked her out." He looks over to her with a sympathetic smile. "I'm not saying we weren't all freaking out a bit, but like one of the nurses said the morning she was released—they wouldn't be sending her home if they thought she wasn't going to be okay, you know?"

She nods, and reaches for the door handle before pausing. "How did she get it, have they figured that out yet?" And Mike rubs his hands over his face before looking at her.

"Russell," he tells her, "I guess he thought wearing a mask was stupid, or an infringement of his civil rights, or some other dumb shit like that." Mike gives her a look that makes it clear exactly what he thinks of Lindsey's boyfriend. "They spent some time together when she got back into town, but he was probably already infected. The health department said he probably got it at the gym, or at the bar he likes to go to—neither place is really stringent about making their customers wear masks, so he fit right in."

Emily takes a deep breath before looking up at him. "I'm not sorry I punched you," she says, eyes narrowing, "and I can't promise I won't do it again." But she squeezes his hand back in thanks even as she threatens him, so Mike isn't all that concerned about the chances he'll end up with two sore arms in the near future. "But if I see that asshole, I'm definitely going to punch him in the throat. Or kick him in the dick," her mouth took on a wicked, threatening expression that wasn't a smile and wasn't a frown either but something terrifyingly dangerous in-between.

"Let me know if you want any help," he grins—Lindsey's grin—and they move to get out of the car, well aware that Mrs. Horan is probably wondering why they haven't come in yet, but before they make it to the door, Emily grabs his shirt, a little panicked, and Mike isn't sure what's got her worked up now. "Dude, can we just—"

But she pulls him close for a moment. "Don't tell her I cried?" Emily whispers, no, pleads with him, and Mike can only laugh, twisting out of her grip and watching the panic blossom into a flush that disappears under her jacket.

"Are you kidding? That's the _first_ thing I'm going to tell her," he sticks out his tongue and turns back to the door in what has become a race to get inside. They grapple for a minute or two in the doorframe, the screen door bouncing against them as they both struggle to open the door and prevent the other from getting in, she using her superior strength and he his larger body, but both of them stop, half-collapsing on each other when Mrs. Horan opens the heavy front door and just looks down at them in disbelief.

— — —

Lindsey's room is dark, and Emily hates the way she can hear how strained her best friend's breathing is all the way over from the doorway. She doesn't go in yet, just stands there with light from the hall cutting a sharp line across the floor of the room. There's a rustling, and a ragged breath, and then Lindsey's voice—always deeper than anyone might expect but right now it seems so much lower, and there's an underlying rattle that seems to tug at something in Emily's own chest.

"Mom?" Lindsey asks, shifting slowly onto her side.

Emily takes a deep breath and then steps into the room, crossing it in unusually long strides to sit on the edge of the bed. "No, idiot," she tells her friend, somehow managing to swallow back the words that have slowly been rising in her throat since she first heard the news, the news of the first test. "It's me."

There's a silent beat before Lindsey brings up a hand to rub at her eyes. "Rose?" she tries again, and Emily spends a solid three seconds with her mouth open in disbelief before swatting at her best friend's shoulder.

"Asshole," she glowers, "like Rose would ever take a overnight commercial flight back from fucking Europe just to check in on you." But even if Lindsey doesn't laugh Em can see the corner of her lips lift in the dim light from the hall. It's quiet again, aside from the heavy wheeze of Lindsey's breathing, and Emily just looks at her, how drawn and exhausted she looks, eyes closed and her face pale.

Suddenly, Lindsey seems to wake fully, and her eyes are wide when she looks at the blonde. "Not s'posed to be here," the words are muffled, a little slurred, and then she breaks into a deep, dry coughing spell that seems like it will never end. A sharp flash of fear cuts across her face as she blinks, the fit finally winding down, and looks up at her visitor. "Can't get sick—," Lindsey tries to push the blonde away, and it would be amusing how feeble she seems if Emily wasn't acutely aware of how strong the younger woman is when healthy.

She resists the younger woman's attempts to shove her away easily. "Calm down, Linessi," Emily whispers softly, combing her hands through Lindsey's long, loose hair, "I'm not going to get sick." She shifts on the bed, bringing her legs up and shimmying down until she's stretched out next to her friend, a familiar position from their years as roommates, when it was a pretty frequent occurrence to fall asleep in each other's beds after a late night gossip session or _Gossip Girl_ marathon.

Emily lets an arm fall over Lindsey's waist, holding her close. "You know how important we athletes are," she says as her best friend snuggles in close unconsciously, "they hit us each with the vaccine the day after the game." Which was, she couldn't remember what with the all night flight and the time zones, yesterday? The day before? Today? She rubs over the still sore injection point on her arm, feeling the bandaid there, "so I'm not worried about you getting me sick. Not at all."

Lindsey just breathes for a few minutes, the sound rattling all the way down into her chest, and Emily thinks she's halfway to sleep again when she finally hears the larger woman respond. "If you can't manufacture your own immunity," the words come out slow but clear as she references one of their favorite memes, "store-bought is fine."

The smaller woman chuckles softly, holding Lindsey gently, spooning her close and assuring herself that her best friend will be okay. "Go to sleep, Lins," Emily whispers, "so I can yell at you when you're feeling better."

— — —

“So,” Mrs. Horan asks as she passes Emily a platter overflowing with fresh steamed vegetables, “you'll stay, won’t you?” And Emily looks around the table at the small Horan family that's almost as familiar as her own—Lindsey's mother, her brother, her father. "For a few days at least? You're more than welcome to, I hope you know that, Emily," the older woman continues.

And the blonde transfers some spears of asparagus to her plate, trying to decide what to say. It's dark outside now, and Emily isn't entirely sure how that happened. She remembers laying down next to Lindsey in the large bed looking out over the green expanse of backyard, the mid-morning sun illuminating the mountains in the distance, and then suddenly it was dark, and Mrs. Horan was gently shaking her awake, asking if she wanted some dinner.

"If you're still tired," Lindsey's mother had said, "I can just make up a plate and leave it in the fridge for whenever you're ready?"

But Emily had shaken her head, blinking away the sleep in her eyes. "No, no, I could eat, let me just—"

"No rush," Mrs. Horan had assured her, "it won't be ready for another hour or so, but I just wanted to check. I can come back up and shake you again if you want to close your eyes for a little longer?" And her voice was so soft and kind that Emily had felt awkward, laying there next to her daughter, under a blanket someone had draped over them at some point in the afternoon.

"You don't have to come back up," the blonde had said, lowering her voice as she'd felt Lindsey curl in closer, and grateful for the darkness to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks, "I'll come down, I'll get up." But even as she tried to sit up, Lindsey just held her closer, reluctant to let her go, and Mrs. Horan just smiled. "Take your time, Emily," she said softly, "you've had a long day already with that flight."

Now, Emily sits at the table, passing dishes and listening as the family chatters on about things that mean nothing—the weather, the state of the holiday decorations in the subdivision—and tries not to think about what it had felt like in those seconds of waking in Lindsey's bed, how warm and safe and right it had been. How the unsettled feeling that had been sitting in her belly had finally, finally eased, and sleep had come so easy after months of struggling with an insomnia she'd attributed to the time change, the unfamiliar surroundings, the anxiety over playing time, over the virus circling the globe, over the civil and civic unrest.

Attributed to anything and everything except the distance she had found herself from her best, her closest friend.

It unsettles her even more now, the realization that it had been Lindsey who she'd been missing, needing. And she looks up at Mrs. Horan with an uncertain expression. "Um," Emily hesitates, "I mean, I don't want to put you out or anything?"

But Lindsey's mother shakes her head. "Don't be silly. You're always welcome here, and I know that Lindsey will appreciate having you around as well. You'll be good for her, for her recovery," the older woman says, and how can Emily do anything but agree to stay after that.

— — —

So she stays.

Emily stays.

Stays in Lindsey's house with Lindsey's family.

Stays in Lindsey's bed with Lindsey asleep beside her, a fever that rages through the younger woman's body every night, a rattling in her chest that shakes her with a violence that worries the blonde.

Emily stays and wakes with Lindsey half-draped over her and slips out every morning to go for a run, letting the chill winter air numb her body and her mind. Until the only thought in her head is the simple process of putting one foot in front of the other. Until the only feeling in her body is the ache of her thighs, the thump of her soles against the pavement, the burn of her red, red nose in the blustery winds that seem to whip down from the mountains and cut across her path deliberately.

She showers with Lindsey's shampoo and Lindsey's conditioner and Lindsey's body wash, and spends with the scent of sandalwood and citrus following in her wake. She pulls clothes out of Lindsey's dresser, not caring if the Adidas hoodies and leggings she wears truly belong to her or to the woman asleep in the bed behind her.

She sits at the breakfast nook with Lindsey's mother, drinking coffee and working on the crossword puzzle. Works with her laptop in the den, surrounded by pictures of the Horans, Lindsey and Mike over the years, all smiles and mischievous eyes. Checks on Lindsey, feeling her forehead, bringing cups of ice cold water and handfuls of pills prescribed by the family doctor. She spends her afternoons taking shots on the goal Lindsey's dad had constructed in the backyard all those years ago, running drills on her own as best she can until Mike takes pity on her and joins in.

She passes the evenings in Lindsey's bed, sitting up against the headboard, the lights dim and her best friend's head in her lap as they marathon one show from their teenage years or another. Her fingers combing through the younger woman's dirty hair, listening for any change in the pattern of her slow, painful breaths. Feeling for any break in the fevered warmth of Lindsey's skin.

She sleeps curled around Lindsey's strong body, her arms wrapped tight around the brunette's waist. She sleeps with her nose brushing over the other woman's shoulder, her collarbone, waking when she feels the bed shake with the power of another coughing fit, or worse, a fever-fed nightmare. She whispers soft words into the darkness, and watches the panic in Lindsey's bright eyes fade, always slower than she'd wish.

Emily stays and slots so seamlessly into Lindsey's family, into her most private life, that there are moments when she really and truly forgets that she doesn't actually belong.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey," Emily hears when she opens her eyes one morning, just over a week and a half since she'd arrived, and she sees Lindsey looking back at her. The other woman's voice is hoarse, damaged from fever and the long coughing spells that have only seemed to ease in the last day or so. That, or the blonde has become so inured to them now that they don't even faze her any more. And it's not the first time that Lindsey has awoken before her, but it is the first that she's done so and looked so ... so aware, so almost normal. The older woman gives her a soft smile and brings up a hand to check for fever. But Lindsey's brow is, if not cool, at least the coolest it's been in days, and her cheek feels clammy against Emily's fingers. The fever, at long last, is breaking.

"Hey there, Linessi," she whispers, pushing the blankets back just a bit to let Lindsey feel the cool morning air on her skin, "you look like you're feeling better?" And though Lindsey coughs before she can answer, it's not as heart-wrenchingly terrifying as it has been, it sounds almost normal. The kind of cough that sits with a person long after they've recovered from a cold, annoying but expected.

The younger woman blinks slowly to clear the sleep from them, rubbing at them. "I feel better? I think?" she answers like she's not sure, like she can't quite remember what better feels like. "What—what day is it?"

Emily smiles, brushing a little bit of hair from her best friend's face, "It's December, the sixth. Did you lose track with all this lazing around you've been doing?" And she would laugh at the way Lindsey attempts to pinch her in annoyance, how easy it is to knock away those feeble fingers. Except for the fact that the younger woman has always been the strongest person she's ever known, and the ease at which this illness has consumed her, burned through her, makes Emily want to cry.

Still, Lindsey makes a face, and that’s how Emily knows that there will be an end to this episode in the shared narrative of the worst year ever. “How are you feeling?” the blonde asks softly, and there’s something inside her that cracks at how soft Lindsey looks, the way she nuzzles right into her.

“Tired,” the younger woman admits, “which is crazy because all I do is sleep.” And Emily smiles at that. “And everything hurts, like the insides of my lungs feel like I tried to inhale shards of glass.” Lindsey closes her eyes for a moment before looking back up at her, “But I’m glad you’re here, Dasani,” she whispers. “I don’t know if I said it already at some point, but I am.”

“Someone had to come and keep you in line,” Emily shrugs, but inside she’s glowing at the words. They’re quiet for a moment, the morning sun still pale outside the window, and it can’t be much later than an hour or so after dawn. And she should let Lindsey rest, let her slip back into sleep. She should. Except—

Except it's been days now, days of not being able to talk to her best friend like she really wants to. Like she really needs to. It's been days and Emily has questions she needs answered. "Linds," she starts, and she hates the tentative way the nickname falls from her lips, how hesitant she sounds. But Lindsey still isn't at the top of her game because she doesn't seem to notice either the tone or the tremor in her best friend's voice.

"S'up, D'sani," the younger woman mumbles into the soft fleece of Emily's hoodie—Lindsey's hoodie that Emily stole one day earlier in the week after Mrs. Horan had hijacked her bag of dirty laundry and insisted on doing it for her. And Emily can feel the way Lindsey's fingers have settled over her belly, can almost feel them through the material, and it's doing something to her brain, to her heart. It's doing something to her lungs and for a moment she wonders if maybe, just maybe, she's gotten sick after all, experimental vaccine be damned. "Em?" Lindsey raises her head just enough to look at the older woman, and Emily nods, biting her lip. She has to keep going, she can't stop now.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispers, trying to hide the hurt in her voice, but not doing very well, and the quiet that descends after the words fade feels damning.

Lindsey shifts, moving up and off of Emily's chest until her head rests on the pillow next to the other woman, mirroring her. Until finally she speaks, her voice still rough, but not enough to hide the concern there. "What do you mean," she asks, and Emily rolls her eyes just enough that Lindsey nods, conceding. "You knew I was sick," Lindsey whispers, "everyone knew that much."

"They told us," Emily assents, "when they shared that Soph was going to be coming into camp with us. And one of the PR guys made a big point of assuring us all that you were asymptomatic; I think he mentioned it every time your name came up in interviews or pressers." But she thinks back now, thinks about just how hard he'd stressed that point, and wonders, "you weren't though, were you, not really. They were just saying that to keep people from freaking out."

And Lindsey nods, giving Emily a thin-lipped frown. "I wasn't," she admits. "I had a fever within a day of the positive test, and it took a few more days for the other symptoms to really hit, but I wasn't asymptomatic like they made it sound. The Federation just didn't want me to talk about it, they thought it might worry fans and investors and sponsors needlessly. And they didn't want the team to worry needlessly either."

It makes sense, Emily can concede that fact, but still, "—I'm not a fan, though," she whispers, "I'm not an investor or a sponsor. You could have told me, you should have told me." Now she doesn't bother to hide the hurt that she feels, the hurt that Lindsey hadn't told her something so important. Lindsey, to whom she tells everything, everything that matters, anyway.

Almost everything.

"I didn't want to worry you," Lindsey tells her softly, and the words are sincere. Emily can hear how much her friend means them. "You were over in Sweden, and then the Netherlands, and you couldn't do anything about it anyway, so I figured it was just better to let you focus on the important stuff." Her shoulders have risen, almost in defense, and she can't quite look at Emily.

And Emily gets it, she does. Except she would have told Lindsey, or tells herself she would have, anyway. And, too, there's a part of her that wonders if her best friend keeping it from her was some kind of punishment, some kind of retribution for leaving. For getting traded to Orlando. For going overseas. "Important stuff?" she gives Lindsey a look that causes the other woman to cower a little. "More important than you?" And she doesn't care if it sounds desperate because at the very least it's honest, it's true. Emily can't think of a single reason Lindsey could give that would be more important to her than her best friend in the entire world.

It should scare her, she thinks. It should absolutely terrify her to say it, to put the words between them, make them real. But Emily has realized something over the last few minutes. Maybe over the last few days. _Longer, longer_ , the voice in the back of her head—the voice that knows the language of her heart—whispers into her blood, _you've always known,_ and the blonde nods her head in unconscious agreement. It should scare her, this openness, this intimacy.

But nothing scares her now. She's already faced the thought of losing Lindsey. Wept silent, angry tears into the thick weight of a rose red #10 hoodie on an overnight flight from Europe at the thought that her best friend—her Lindsey—might be taken from her. And realizing that, Emily feels a kind of strength she didn't know existed, a certainty and a will derived from a love that exists in the deepest places of her heart.

For the rest of her life, she'll have this, carry this—this love.

But Lindsey will be okay.

And that will be enough.

Lindsey coughs slightly, face pink as she tries to keep the minor fit under control, and Emily shifts to reach for the bottle of water by the side of bed, handing it to the younger woman who takes it with grateful eyes. "Thanks," she rasps once she can speak without coughing again, and the blonde nods, waiting patiently.

"I'm sorry," Lindsey says softly, and she reaches for Emily's hand to squeeze it gently, "I should have told you. I should have let Mike call you when it got really bad."

It doesn't erase the memory of finding out that Lindsey had been admitted to the hospital, that she'd been struggling to breath so much her lips had taken on a bluish tint. It doesn't erase the hours she spent on that flight thinking about all the worst case scenarios, or even the last week of watching over her with the memory of the possibility of loss fresh on her mind. But it's something, and Emily nods, squeezing her best friend's hand back in return.

They settle again, into a companionable quiet that is warm and familiar, and Emily doesn't stop herself from slipping her fingers into Lindsey's thick hair, scratching gently just the way she's learned Lindsey likes over the last few days spent closer than ever. Spent with the younger woman in her arms.

Quiet, that is, until Lindsey grins up at her. "I heard you cried," the other woman teases, and Emily just makes a face, tugging teasingly at the brunette's hair.

"Brat," she whispers softly, but the word is soft, kind.

Lindsey just smiles up at her, looking the most alive Emily's seen her in days.

"Crybaby."

— — —

"Ow," Mike grumbles, headphones slipping off his head as he leans back on the couch in the den and looks up to see Emily standing over him, fist cocked and ready to punch him again. "What the fuck, Son?" And he looks genuinely confused, and maybe a little offended to top it off.

But Em just punches him again, the bitter spark of satisfaction easing the odd ache in her chest. The one that had flickered to life when Lindsey had teased her about her tears. Not shame, not fear, just ... an odd, unfamiliar feeling. One she didn't quite have a word for yet.

He drops the controller to the game he was playing and stands, and the intensity of his presence is so like his sister's that Emily feels the need to take a step back before she's overwhelmed by yet another Horan and their intimidating auras. "You told her," she hisses as quietly as she can, well aware that Lindsey is up and out of bed and being watched over like a hawk by her mother just in the kitchen across the hall. "You told her that I cried," Emily narrows her eyes, the anger surging again, and she clenches her fist against her thigh, weighing the chances that she'd be able to land another one.

But even as she lifts her arm, Mike grabs it and holds it, annoyed but not cruel in his touch. "Dude," he whispers back, though not as careful or quiet as Emily had been, "would you chill the fuck out?" And she's reminded, then, of the airport. How he'd let her cry all over him, leaving large wet spots against his jacket. How he'd squeezed her hand as they pulled into the neighborhood where he and Lindsey had grown up. And Emily understands what it must have been like for Lindsey, having an older brother like Mike. Equal parts love and exasperation.

"You told her that I cried over her," she says again, and Mike just looks at her like she's crazy. And then, to her embarrassment, he begins to laugh.

"Seriously?" he asks, his eyes sparkling with amusement, "you're mad that I told her you cared about her?" But when she doesn't answer, just stares at him with angry eyes Mike shakes his head in something close to disbelief. "Jesus," he swears, almost to himself, as he lets her arm go, "the two of you really need to get your shit together." And Emily would have pressed him, might have even punched him again, except for the appearance of Mr. Horan in the doorway asking if anyone needed anything while he was on his way out to pick up the variety of curbside orders his wife had sent through over the last day or two.

Mike just shakes his head, thanking his dad, but Emily seizes the opportunity to get away, even for just a few hours. To put some space between herself and the ... the everything that this house contains.

— — —

The thing Emily likes about Mr. Horan is that he’s quiet. Quiet in a way that reminds her of his daughter, the way Lindsey can sit and be so still, so focused. Around her at least. How sometimes the best times she’d spent with Lindsey in the apartment they shared back in Portland were completely silent. Making dinner together, cooling down after a run, watching some trashy television show, leaning into each other until they fell asleep, limbs tangled together and impossible to separate without waking each other.

He hums along to the radio as they drive—the grocery store, Target, Walmart—and taps his fingers on the steering wheel in a way that eases the tension in Emily’s chest. They’re halfway back to the house when he finally speaks, and she realizes that the silence has only been a prelude, the music an overture to the inevitable. And Emily braces herself.

“Lindsey looks like she's over the hump,” he begins, and Emily nods, doing her best to stare straight ahead, and not look over at her best friend’s dad as they pass the subdivisions and gated communities that make up this city aside the mountains. But she doesn't say anything because this, too, is familiar. The slow unravelling of a thought over what could feel like an eternity, a forever.

She wonders, though, if he knows. If he can see inside her head, if the thoughts she'd thought she'd been hiding so well, only letting out on her long, solitary runs, are written plain across her face.

She wonders, afraid, of what he would think of the way her heart seems to trip over itself in her love for his daughter.

He waves an old red pickup through at the next intersection, in no hurry on such a nice afternoon, the sun reflecting off of the snow with such force that Emily wishes she'd brought her sunglasses along. "I saw her down in the kitchen, sitting at the table and having a cup of tea with Linda, and to be honest, that day we had to get her to the emergency room I was scared to death that we might never see that again." Mr. Horan looks over at her before he refocuses on the road and continues to drive, "Those stories you hear about this thing, you know, people going into the hospital and coming out in—," he swallows hard. "Well, you know."

And Emily nods, because she does know. Her own parents are older, and the thought of them getting the virus, of them dying from it, has been on her mind since March.

Lindsey's dad clears his throat, and she can see the way his hand shakes just the slightest as he reaches for the gearshift, and Emily doesn't think before she acts. (It's a lifelong problem, really; she's working on it.) She rests her palm over his larger hand, holding it there until she feels his fingers close around hers, holding on tight as he finally lets the worry and fear of his daughter's illness begin to wane. "She's going to be okay," the blonde whispers encouragingly, and he looks over at her with red-rimmed eyes, nodding.

"I know," Mr. Horan gives her a grateful nod in return, "And I think—Emily, Linda and I are so thankful to you for coming out here to help take care of her. Honestly, I think you've helped more than you could ever know."

He squeezes her hand once more before letting it go, and Emily has to wipe away tears of her own in the contented, understanding quiet that has settled between them in the cab of the truck. "I—," she tries to formulate the words but has to stop, swallowing hard, "She's important." And Mr. Horan gives her a gentle smile, a supportive nod.

"She is," he wipes at his eyes once more, clearing his throat again before sitting up straighter at the wheel. "Okay," Mr. Horan says, "we should get back before my wife puts together a whole new list of things we have to go and pick up."

And Emily laughs.

— — —

“Can I ask for a favor?” Lindsey asks as Emily helps her up the stairs after dinner. And her voice is tentative, like she’s afraid to ask, like she’s certain that whatever she’s about to request will be too much for Emily to give.

The blonde looks over at her. She has an arm wrapped tight around the younger woman's waist, and Lindsey's arm is draped over her shoulder as they take the stairs step by step by step. And Emily is trying so hard not to think about how hard it is for her best friend, how even the slightest effort seems to leave Lindsey shaking with exhaustion, sweating from the exertion. “Shoot,” she says softly, wondering what’s on her best friend’s mind with fingers unconsciously stroking over the Lindsey's ribs, feeling how unnaturally prominent they are at the moment.

Still, even with permission, it takes a moment for Lindsey to work up the words, to make her request. “Linessi?” Emily asks, and she’s growing a little concerned, because there haven’t been many times in their friendship where Lindsey hesitated to ask for what she wanted.

“It’s—,” Lindsey swallows, and winces a little at how sore her throat is after days and days of intense coughing fits, “it’s just that it’s been a couple of days since I’ve been able to shower.” Her cheeks are pink and Emily is certain that she’s sporting a matching hue herself. “I mean, my mom’s been helping, nothing like a sponge bath,” she adds, making a wry face, “but I miss—I need—a _real_ shower, you know?”

They reach the top of the stairs and Lindsey is breathing heavily, Emily practically supporting her friend's entire weight. But that's not the heaviest weight she's carrying at the moment, not with that question settling thickly in the air between them. "I mean," she starts slowly, breathing deep and swallowing down all the feelings she's working so hard to pretend don't exist. "I didn't want to say anything, but you do kind of smell," she teases, well aware that Lindsey can see the smirk she's sporting.

But Lindsey doesn't laugh, just turns into Emily, who has backed her into a wall to help keep her steady while she waits for the younger woman to catch her breath, find a second wind. "Dasani," she whispers, resting her head against the blonde's, "please?"

And Emily takes a breath, still holding her best friend up, steadying Lindsey, and thinks of all the possible ways that what the brunette is asking of her could go wrong. Except—

Except—

Except the older woman already knows, she's going to say yes.

When it comes to Lindsey, she will always say yes. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay," Emily whispers, because she doesn't trust her voice right now, "so how do you want to do this?" She can feel the warmth of Lindsey's body, caught between her and the wall, and already she can tell that the fever is returning. Like the doctor advised them it will continue to return even though it's clear that she's past the worst of the infection. And for a moment the blonde wonders if she can talk her best friend into waiting another night, convince her that the shower will feel better in the morning, when she's not exhausted from a day of more activity than she's had in more than a week. But Lindsey looks too happy, too pleased at just the thought of being able to wash up that Emily abandons the thought completely.

The taller woman looks down at her with grateful eyes, and breathes out an exhausted, relieved sigh. "Um," she thinks aloud, "maybe—," but she blushes, and it's that which eases the anxious ache in the older woman's chest. They're both nervous about this, both well aware that as normal as it might seem for the two of them, this won't be like any of the thousands of times they've been naked around each other before. "My bathroom, Mike and mine, the shower's just like a regular one, but my parents', they redid it a few years ago after my dad had a knee replacement. It's bigger, and a walk-in, so I think ...."

She's rambling nervously now, and as much as Emily wants to shake her head and insist they use the bathroom down the hall, which seems like a much better idea than the intimate space of Lindsey's parents' bathroom, she presses a firm hand to her friend's shoulder. The butterflies in her belly are going wild, but Emily forces them back down, breathing in shallowly as she looks into Lindsey's eyes. "How about I go down and make sure your parents don't mind, and see if I can find something for you to sit on if standing is too much?" she asks, stepping back a little and wrapping her arm around the other woman's waist again. 

Lindsey gives her a soft smile, and nods, accepting Emily's help again as they walk down the hall, stopping in front of the Horans' bedroom door. "I can ask my mom if you want," she offers, sitting on the edge of her parents' bed, "I can send her a text or something?" But Emily shakes her head.

"No, I don't mind," and it's not exactly the truth but Lindsey is blushing at least as deep as she is and Emily, at least, can give her best friend the gift of not having to broach the topic of sharing the shower with her mother. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

But before she can go, Lindsey reaches for her hand and pulls her back. "Dasani," the brunette whispers, "Em—thank you." 

And Emily just nods in return, squeezing her best friend's hand, before heading out to go and find Mrs. Horan.

— — —

Lindsey's mom doesn't bat an eye at the question, and Emily almost feels silly for the worry that had built up in her lungs as she descended the stairs. "Of course you can use our bathroom," Mrs. Horan smiles at her encouragingly, "I know Lindsey was telling me earlier while you and Mark were out that she was dying for a shower but didn't feel up to taking one. I'm so glad she asked you for help." And her best friend's mother gives her a tight, grateful hug as she chuckles. They're both well aware of just how hard it is for Lindsey to ask for help with anything, and if she hadn't practically been knocked flat by COVID Emily might have teased her a little more before giving in.

She tells Mrs. Horan as much, and the two share a knowing smile. "Oh, she would have deserved it," the older woman assures the blonde, "before you showed up last week even getting her to let me wipe her face down with a cool washcloth was a struggle." Mrs. Horan looks down at Emily, almost sizing her up. "But you slip right past all those defenses," she rested her palm against the younger woman's cheek, patting affectionately, "it's like she just can't say no to you."

But Emily has never been the best in moments like this, in the face of sincere gratitude, open emotion. And even though it’s been happening a lot lately, here with Lindsey’s family, it still makes her want to crack a joke and run away. But she resists the urge, ignoring the red flush she knows is spreading across her cheeks, the blush she knows is more than apparent to Lindsey’s mom. “She—I—,” Emily tries to explain, tries to put into words what exists between the two of them, Lindsey and herself, but she can’t. Because where could she even start?

But Mrs. Horan gives her a smile and pulls her into a warm, motherly hug. “You’re important too, Emily Sonnett,” Lindsey’s mother whispers in her ear, the words full of sincere gratitude. And she returns the hug, wondering whether it was Lindsey or her father who shared their conversation before deciding that it didn’t matter in the least. “And she knows that,” Mrs. Horan continues, “even if she doesn’t know how to show it.”

Emily looks up at her and nods, feeling the gathering weight of tears in the corners of her eyes. But she wipes them away, because Lindsey is upstairs waiting for her. And she can’t—not now. Not yet. So she clears her throat, grateful that Mrs. Horan doesn’t say more, doesn’t press for more. “Is there—do you guys have like a stool or something?” Emily asks, well aware that it’s got to be an odd request and an even odder transition. “In case,” she swallows hard, “I just thought that if she gets tired it’ll be good for her to sit?”

“Oh!” Mrs. Horan smiles down at her. “There’s a bench in the shower already,” she tells Emily. “After all the trouble Mark had when he was recovering from his surgery a few years ago, we realized we needed to plan for our future needs. We’re not quite as young as we used to be,” she laughs. “So it should be perfect for her while she recovers,” Lindsey’s mom nods, “and go ahead and use whatever you need. Towels, anything. We won’t be heading to bed for awhile, so don’t feel you have to rush, okay?” And Emily doesn’t feel  less awkward about the whole situation, but at least she’s not afraid that Lindsey’s mom will be upset to find out that her daughter asked Emily to help her with this personal, intimate, task instead of asking her.

— — —

“Alright,” Emily says, coming back into the large bedroom, “green lights all around.” She’s clutching a stack of clean pajamas to her chest, a pair for Lindsey and a pair for herself, and a couple of soft, fluffy towels that she’d grabbed from the linen closet in the hallway. But she finds the younger woman curled up, dozing lightly, on her parents’ bed, and Emily sighs, more out of fondness than frustration.

She drops the towels and clothes in the bathroom, taking a moment to look at the shower and get the water started before returning to the bedroom. “Linds,” the blonde gently rests her palm against the brunette’s cheek, patting softly to wake her. “Hey, there,” Emily says with a gentle smile as Lindsey shifts and blinks up at her, “let’s get you showered and in bed, yeah?”

"Sorry I fell asleep," she lets the blonde pull her up and lead her into the bathroom, the humid air fogging up the small room a salve for her scratchy throat and aching lungs. But Emily just gives her a nervous smile.

"I'm not offended," the older woman teases, "you've been falling asleep on me for over a week now." And the wink she gives Lindsey sparks a blush that quickly spreads over her cheeks. A redness that is mirrored by the one Emily is currently sporting as well.

And Lindsey wonders, she needs to know—

“This is okay, right?” she asks, like she’s only just realized that this is different, will be different, than all the other times they’ve been naked in front of each other. And Emily can hear the way her voice trembles as the words spill out, heavier than the water-pregnant air between them. So she does the only thing she can in the moment, the only thing that will ease the worry in her best friend’s eyes.

She lies.

“Linds,” Emily pulls the hair tie from the thick ponytail at the taller woman’s neck, “it’s just me. It’s just us.” Her fingers scratch gently into Lindsey’s scalp and the other woman practically purrs at the touch, doing her best to swallow back the moan than threatens to escape. “You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”

But Lindsey doesn’t answer. She can’t. Because she knows—the answer would be a no. She would never have, could never have, done everything for Emily that Emily had done for her. She might have gone to Atlanta to check on her best friend. She might have visited daily. But she would never have held her into the night, never held cold compresses to Emily’s neck or rubbed her back to help alleviate the ache of inflamed lungs, sore muscles, feverish skin. She would have supported Emily, yes, but always at just the slightest distance, always from just far enough away that the question that has haunted her for years now never had to be addressed. There’s nothing Lindsey excels at more than quiet, deliberate self-denial, after all.

Except—

Except.

Except the question never quite completely disappears from her head, or her heart. She just talks over it, drowns it out with distractions. Russell. Soccer. Excuse after excuse after excuse. And right now? Right now she’s too tired to pretend it doesn’t exist. All her walls, all her fears, all her doubts—they exhaust her. And Emily, sweet and gentle Emily, with her worried eyes and her warm, supportive voice—Emily is here. Emily is standing here before her and Lindsey wonders just what it would cost her to let the question finally, finally, be addressed.

It could cost her everything. Of course she knows that.

But like her mother said earlier, in their hours alone while Emily and her father were out, letting it sit, unasked and unanswered between them could cost her everything too.

— — —

The water is warm, not hot, and it feels so good that Lindsey thinks she might cry. They stand there for a long moment, just letting the water pulse over them before Emily holds up a wash cloth and a bottle of Lindsey’s preferred body wash.

“Your mom said to use whatever you wanted,” Emily begins to lather up the cloth, “but I thought you might want the stuff you like?” And Lindsey nods, the gratitude in her heart spilling over.

“It’s the same stuff you use,” she admits, “you let me borrow it once when I forgot I’d run out of my own at the stadium.” And Emily looks at her strangely, and for a moment Lindsey thinks she’s said too much. But the blonde begins to laugh softly, and she looks up to meet those deep blue eyes.

Emily puts the bottle on one of the shower shelves and gives her a smile, easing the worry in the taller woman’s chest. “Linessi,” she teased gently, “I buy whatever’s on sale.” And Lindsey looks at her, mouth open a little in surprise. “But this stuff does smell good—I clearly have awesome taste.”

She should feel stupid, perhaps, but it’s hard with the way that Emily is smiling at her so fondly, amusement sparkling in her eyes. “Nope,” Lindsey shakes her head, “if you did you’d still be using it. I get all the credit for how awesome we’re going to smell.” And the shorter woman laughs before she holds up the soapy washcloth.

“Ready?” Emily asks, and Lindsey closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and nods. She keeps her eyes closed as the other woman drags the warm, sudsy cloth over shoulders, up the back of her neck, down her arms, the center line of her chest. She can feel the heated flush spread across her skin, as if anticipating exactly where Emily will go next, and Lindsey hopes the blonde doesn’t notice, that it just blends in with the pink of the warm water against her flesh.

And then, for a moment, Emily hesitates, and opening her eyes, she realizes why. “It’s okay,” Lindsey whispers, and she’s well aware of how husky her voice is at the moment. As much as she knows that she can’t blame any of it on her illness. Not now, not this.

“I just,” Emily swallows, “I didn’t want to assume—“ but Lindsey looks at her, waiting for the blonde to meet her eyes before giving her a nod, granting permission.

“It’s okay,” she grabs for her best friend’s hand for a moment, even though her chest aches with the breath she can’t let out. Can’t for the fear that it will come out as a shuddering moan. Emily’s touch is so gentle over her breasts, pausing again only to put a little more gel on the cloth again before she continues, and Lindsey can’t keep the slight gasp from escaping as the washcloth moves over her nipples. But Emily, tinged pink now herself, ignores it to her great relief, moving lower and spreading the soapy suds over her abs, her belly.

“Let me rinse you off,” the blonde whispers softly, standing up from where she’d crouched drag the washcloth over Lindsey’s legs, “and then we’ll do your back.”

They repeat the whole process, Emily breathing easier now that she doesn’t have to hide the feelings that she’s pretty certain are written plain across her face. And yet, somehow it’s even more intimate this way, watching the way the muscles of Lindsey’s back ripple as she breathes, as she reaches for the hand railing on the wall of the shower. She’s getting worn out, Emily can tell. She might be an expert now on reading Lindsey’s body language, even more than she was before COVID, when she was one of the best. Now, she can tell from the way her best friend breathes, from the slightest shift in the way she stands, the littlest quirk of her eyebrows, just what Lindsey needs, sometimes even before the brunette knows herself.

Now, it’s in the way Lindsey’s fingers clutch at the railing, the angle of her shoulders. And Emily moves faster over the taller woman’s backside, rinsing her off before moving to her front again. “Okay,” the blonde says with a peppy smile, “if you want your hair washed you’re going to have to sit. I’m too short to reach otherwise.” And it’s true, though she could have managed with Lindsey standing if she had to. But the chances of her best friend collapsing out of the stubborn insistence to remain standing are, while not entirely gone, at least diminished now.

“You didn’t want to try and steal my shampoo preference too?” Emily teases her gently as she begins to massage the rosemary and mint scented shampoo into Lindsey’s scalp, and the seated woman rolls her eyes.

“I’m too good for your Head & Shoulders, Dasani,” she responds, smiling to herself. In objection, Emily digs her nails into her scalp just enough to make Lindsey wince, and it feels so good that she moans softly. But the other woman doesn’t stop, just continues to massage the shampoo into Lindsey’s scalp, scratching every so often in a way that leaves goosebumps trailing down the brunette’s arms. “Em,” she whispers, and it takes a moment before the woman standing next to her responds, a soft hum that Lindsey knows is an acknowledgement that she’s listening. But Lindsey doesn’t know what to say—no, that’s a lie. She doesn’t know how to say what she wants to say. So instead she bites her lip, and just whispers a soft and sincere “Thank you.”

By the end of the shower, Lindsey feels closer to her old self than she has in a long time, longer, even, than before she tested positive. After rinsing the shampoo from her hair and then repeating the whole thing again with Lindsey’s expensive conditioner, Emily had held up a razor and a can of shaving cream, a question on her face. And Lindsey had been the one to hesitate this time, considering the unasked question, falling back on her usual tactic when confronted by things she wasn’t ready to handle yet—humor. “My stubbly legs bothering you, Son?”

Emily had just laughed, shaking her head. “Just hold still,” she’d grinned, “I’d hate to draw blood.” And the brunette had taken the words to heart, but not out of fear of being injured. Out of fear that if she let herself, she might pull the woman close, and let herself finally, finally, discover if Emily’s lips could taste as life-changing as she had imagined. So instead, she held as still as possible, looking down at the woman kneeling before her, at how carefully Emily drew the blade up her leg, down again. She let the blonde carefully run a hand up her calves, making sure she hadn’t missed a spot, let Emily rinse her off again and stand, looking down at her with some wordless emotion swimming in her deep blue eyes.

Lindsey, in that moment, that small and confined space, would have let Emily do anything, honestly. And it was knowing that, realizing that, that shook the brunette to the core. That left her silent as Emily turned, standing under the pulsating head of the shower and quickly, unceremoniously, washed her own body, her long, blonde hair. Lindsey had watched, unable to drag her eyes away, grateful of the way the other woman kept her back to her, because at least that way her best friend couldn’t see the way she was staring.

Now, the favor she had ask for is over. She’s sitting on her bed in the soft flannel pajamas that Emily had dug out of a drawer, hair piled back in the braid Emily had done up for her after helping her dry off. She’s sitting, a hand clutched to the odd, dull pang that’s been slowly building in her chest for days now. For months.

For—for years.

Lindsey sits there, waiting while Emily cleans up the bathroom, images of the other woman flashing before her mind’s eye. Emily, a thousand memories, moments.

Lindsey sits there and she knows.

She knows.

That ache in her heart?

It’s love. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the fic that will never end. This chapter is also shorter than I would usually post for this fic, but I think it’s the fulcrum of the whole thing? Anyway, that’s my excuse.

She wonders what it was that woke her, what slipped past the comforting weight of sleep to prick and prod her into consciousness again. And then she hears it, feels it, the soft whisper of a moan against her neck. Just the slightest wisp of breath setting the baby-fine hairs on her skin standing on edge. A sound low and deep and ... and wanting.

Emily blushes in the dark, swallowing down a gasp as Lindsey’s lips brush over the firm thrumming of her pulse point, feels the way her lips move, the tingle of electricity along her skin. Somehow, at some point in the night, their legs had tangled together, in a way that could only be described as intimate. And now her thigh is being held tight between the other woman’s powerful thighs. And—

And—

Emily’s eyes go wide as she feels it, the way Lindsey presses into her, the way her best friend’s hips rock gently against the hard, firm muscles of her athletic legs. Helpless for a moment to do anything but exist, not even to breathe, as all of the wires in her brain misfire in overwhelmed syncopation. She holds herself still, certain—certain—that to move, whether to end the moment or encourage it, would shatter something between them. Crack open the fragile unspoken truce they’ve struck where Emily can be one hundred percent in love with her best friend in the whole world and Lindsey can exist without having to acknowledge or be aware of it.

Emily hears the soft breaths against her neck again, those tiny little gasps—and knows: it would be so easy. So, so easy to do nothing. To let it go on. To let Lindsey take what she needs, let Lindsey find find the high she’s chasing. She could do it. Emily could ignore the ache in her own belly, ignore the itch in her fingertips, ignore the craving, the need to know exactly, without a doubt, what Lindsey’s eyes would look like in that moment, that apex, that release.

She could.

She could.

But she can’t.

She can’t because she loves Lindsey. Because she loves her in a way she didn’t even know was possible outside of storybooks and cinemas. Because all those dreams and hopes and wants aren’t for the Lindsey who’s pressed up against her in bed, probably dreaming of someone else, the man she loves and not the woman who loves her. A man who is most decidedly, most obviously, not Emily. Because, Emily is growing closer and closer to accepting every day, the Lindsey she loves is a Lindsey that only exists in her secret wantings, in her private thoughts.

So she buries it, all of those wants and needs and desires. Emily buries them all again, deep, deep within her body, between her ribs, where they stick and ache. It makes her stomach hurt, this ill-fitting mask, this vestigial heart, but at least everything is out of sight for the moment, buried again. (Maybe someday she can somehow get it out of her mind.)

“Linds,” the name comes out more a croak than whisper, and she knows—Emily knows—the wanting is plain in her voice, the need apparent. Just as she knows that if Lindsey’s thigh between her legs were to shift, even just the slightest degree, if Lindsey were to press her up against Emily’s own core, she wouldn’t be able to keep the moan from slipping out. “Lindsey,” she tries again. But there’s no response, just the brunette’s ragged breath over her skin, and so Emily gathers up the last threads of decency and respect that she can find within herself. Because she needs to make this stop, for both their sakes. 

“Linessi,” she whispers, louder this time, slowly shifting so that her leg isn’t quite so obviously pressed up between her friend’s. “Wake up,” she gently shakes the younger woman’s shoulders, “you’re snoring.” It’s the easiest, simplest excuse Emily can think of for why she’s trying to shake awake the woman asleep next to her in the middle of the night. 

It works, thank whatever gods are watching over them tonight. She can feel the moment Lindsey wakes, the way the her body tenses, languid limbs going rigid as awareness seeps in. And Emily wishes more than anything she could soothe away the discomfort she sees in Lindsey’s dark, hooded eyes. Wishes she could press a kiss to her best friend’s brow and laugh it off, make some joke to ease the uncomfortable tension she feels thrumming through the younger woman’s body right now. 

But it’s better this way, pretending. It’s better because tomorrow morning, when they wake, things can be normal. They can be Emily and Lindsey, Dasani and Linessi. They can be best friends and teammates and competitors and nothing has to change. Nobody’s heart—Emily’s heart—doesn’t have to be broken.

“God, you snore worse than Mal,” Emily teases as she shifts onto her back, playing the part that’s expected of her. “I’m going to buy you some of those nose strips, I swear.” And she feels, hears, Lindsey shift as well. 

“Sorry,” the words are soft, tentative, and hearing them makes Emily’s heart hurt. 

“Don’t worry about it, Linessi,” she whispers, staring up at into the dark night, “I’m used to it by now.” 

— — —

Sleep is impossible now. 

Sleep is impossible because Lindsey is well enough aware of her body to know that the slick throb between her legs that she’d fallen asleep trying desperately to ignore is now ten times—a hundred times—worse. She can still feel it, the press of Emily’s thigh between her legs, right up against her core. She can feel the muscles in her legs, coiled and tense, ready, ready, ready for more. Still taste the salty sweet sweat at Emily’s neck on her lips. 

And there is a part of her, some percentage that she’s too much of a coward to count up, that wishes the blonde hadn’t woken her. Had let her find her release, let her whimper and gasp the name that had been at the forefront of her dream, on the tip of her tongue, when she’d awoken. There would have been some kind of simplicity to it, to letting Emily find out how she felt as she cried out softly in completion against the blonde’s warm skin, as she whispered Emily’s name against her neck. 

But—it would have been like cheating, she knows. Like skipping ahead to the ending of the book to see whodunnit. The rational part of her brain knows that Emily did the right thing. Knows that the things that have to be said will not all be easy, but that they must be given their due. 

Still, she doesn’t know what to do now, laying awake in the dark room with the blonde breathing in a deep, steady rhythm next to her. But Lindsey knows that the ache between her legs has nothing compared to the ache in her heart. No, the latter is a far, far older kind of wound. Self-inflicted and kept fresh through years of self-denial, of an abject and calculated retreat from the truth. Not the truth staring her in the face, there for the taking if she could just build up the courage, but the truth inside of her. Not the truth of what she could have, if she just let herself. But the truth of who she could be, if she would just let herself.

Emily shifts next to her, and Lindsey holds herself still, not even breathing, until the blonde is settled again. Everything she’s feeling, everything she finally knows she wants, hinges on the woman whose cold nose is pressed up against her arm. The woman who had rushed to her side, helped to nurse her back to health. Who just hours ago had done something so intimate, so personal, for her, she wouldn’t have even entertained asking her mother for help. The woman Lindsey has finally realized she’s been in love with for longer than she can remember. She looks back over the years of their friendship, the perspective shifting until it’s all so, so clear. Until she can see that it’s always been Emily. Emily over anything, over everything else. 

Until she can see the possibility that her best friend, her soft, sweet, funny, exasperating Emily, just might have been feeling the same the whole entire time. Remembering all the moments that Emily had chosen her, had picked her. Every time it had seemed so natural to them to choose each other over all the other options available. Other friends and teammates, other relationships. Russell, Emma, the people who were supposed to be the closest people in their lives, who so often came in second to each other. 

There’s a flicker of hope in her chest, tempered as always by worry and fear. But a flicker that grows stronger and steadier with each slow, deep breath. Every soft sound that slips through Emily’s sleeping lips, every time she remembers a moment when the blonde could have turned away, walked away, but didn’t. Every memory she has of the days since Emily first slipped into her bed, holding her close and whispering that everything was going to be okay, had to be okay, because she was here now. 

Lindsey’s going to take her second chance. 

She’s not going to let it slip through her fingers.

— — —

“So,” Emily starts off tentatively as they sit on the large deck and sip their hot morning coffee. There was a chill in the air still, of course, the early December wind whistling through the mountains in the distance, threatening, as always, an impending winter storm. But for the moment, the weather was pleasant, the sun was shining brightly in the blue-blue sky and the temperature was warm enough that the blonde had foregone a jacket when she’d wandered out through the glass French doors of the kitchen to find Lindsey already there, sitting and watching the sun rise with a cooling mug of coffee in her hands. She takes a tired breath, gathering her thoughts up and trying to keep them in order. Sleep hadn’t come for her until the very earliest hours of the morning, the weak winter sunrise already brightening the dark of Lindsey’s room. And she’d known, she could tell, that her best friend had struggled to find sleep as well. After years of shared hotel rooms and roommate sleepovers, she could always tell when the other woman was only pretending to be asleep. 

And then, the blonde had awoken alone, Lindsey already gone. Left alone to cold sheets and an empty spot next to her in the bed. It had shaken her, laying there alone after such a fitful night’s sleep, to realize how used to Lindsey’s presence next to her in the morning she’d become. Not like before, when waking next to her best friend had been something innocent, something simple. This had been different. This had been something deeper and more intimate. The kind of familiar that forevers are built upon, quarter-century anniversaries and growing family trees. It cuts through her, the knowing that she’s let this go on too long, that she’s let herself get too used to the way things could be between them. If they were different people in different places with different lives.

Emily wakes alone and knows, she has to end it. Before she does something she can’t take back, can’t laugh off. 

Before she does something neither of them will be able to forget.

“I think I should head home soon,” Emily says, letting the words hang between them in the quiet morning chill. And it’s not the temperature that settles like ice around Lindsey’s heart, in her veins. “I mean, now that I know you’re not going to die or anything before you remember who you loaned my Bon Iver vinyl to,” and Emily’s tone is playful in a way that doesn’t fit the moment. That belies the deep chasm that has grown between them since the night before. 

Lindsey doesn’t manage to stop the sharp inhale before it slips out into the air around them, though she does try to cover it with a cough. “I guess you want to see your family,” she says quietly, giving Emily what she hopes is a grateful, encouraging nod. “I mean, you know you’re always welcome here, but if you—if you want to go ...” She lets the words fade off, unwilling or unable to muster up the sincerity she knows should accompany the words. Because now, on this morning when Lindsey has finally, finally let herself see what’s inside of her own heart, let herself take a long, penetrating look at the way she feels for her best friend in the entire world, Emily is pulling away.

“I—there are things I should do,” the blonde looks down at her mug, a misshapen mound of clay that Mike had made back in some middle school art class. “I mean, there’s the holidays, and then I have to head back to Florida, unpack all the boxes I didn’t bother doing anything with before I left for Europe,” Emily gives her a sad smile. “I should probably actually figure out where to do things like take Bagel for a walk or get groceries or just find a decent cup of coffee, you know?”

Lindsey’s lost any interest in the coffee in her hands, but she takes a sip anyway. Just something to do, to give her a moment before she responds. “I was going to go back to Portland,” she says quietly, not looking over at the other woman. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come with, Linessi and Dasani taking the city by storm one last time before the year is finally over.” The brunette chances a glance over to her best friend, but Emily is looking out at the mountains, her jaw hard and set. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Emily answers her in a whisper that sounds forced, as if the words cause her some kind of pain. “I just—I just closed the book on that chapter of my life, Linds,” she continues, “I said goodbye to the person I was there, you know? And going back, going back and pretending that nothing’s changed, it just seems like a bad idea.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I said goodbye to everything that meant something to me there,” Emily whispers, her eyes begging the taller woman to understand, and Lindsey feels the way her heart sinks in her chest, the hopeful feeling from the night before now heavy like a stone. 

Not everything, she wants to say so badly. Not me. But the possible answers Emily might give her in return hurt worse than the pain of not knowing what they would be. 

Emily, Lindsey realizes all too late, is finally, finally, choosing herself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lindsey and the ghost of broken hearts past.

There’s an ache in her chest that has nothing to do with her long weeks of illness.

There's an absence in her life that only one thing, one person, can fill. The woman who had walked away.

It's been three days since Emily left Colorado. She'd done it gracefully, Lindsey could admit that at least. She'd thanked the Horans for their hospitality, arm-wrestled one last time with Mike, telling him he could buy her a beer as her prize for winning the next time they saw each other. But for Lindsey, it had felt anything but graceful, anything but easy.

She’d asked Emily to stay, actually asked. She hadn’t hinted, hadn’t let the offer sit between them unacknowledged. For the first time in her life, Lindsey felt like she’d really made herself completely vulnerable to what she wanted. To Emily and the possibilities that had sat suspended between them for so long. That last morning she'd sat on her bed and watched Emily pack, feeling something in her heart twist painfully, permanently. And she'd reached out, caught the smaller woman's hand and pulled her close.

"Please," Lindsey had whispered, chest so tight she couldn't breathe, could barely get the word out. "Please, Dasani—Emmy, stay?"

But Emily had only swallowed hard, visibly steeling herself against what seemed to be an instinct to agree. "I can't," she'd refused to look at the younger woman, "I have to go. I have things—there are—"

Here's what Lindsey wishes she'd done.

She wishes that she'd pulled her close again, that she'd pulled Emily close enough to feel the heat of her skin, the rise and fall of her chest. She wishes she'd pushed past that shaky exterior, scaled the hastily constructed walls, and showed Emily what was in her heart. That she'd pressed her lips to Emily's hard mouth, just enough to feel the way the smaller woman might melt against her touch, sink into it. She wishes she'd been brave enough to hold Emily in her arms in the bright light of day, to whisper the words she wanted to say, to open the window and shout them into the sunlight.

To kiss her, a promise and a seal and the hope of so, so much more.

But she hadn't. Lindsey hadn't done any of that.

She'd just asked her to stay.

And then watched her walk away.

— — —

"You sure you're feeling okay?" Lindsey's mother asks for what seems like the hundredth time over the last week. She lifts her hand to her daughter's forehead, ignoring the brunette's attempt to duck out of reach.

Lindsey scowls at her, though she regrets it immediately. Her mother doesn't deserve that, especially after how sick she had been, how worried everyone had been when she tested positive, when she'd been in the hospital. "I'm fine," she says with a deep sigh, putting down the magazine she'd been flipping through aimlessly. And she is fine. The cough is slowly easing up, worsening when she gets tired, which she does far easier than ever before, of course. And the fevers only come at night now, but she’s always been a hot sleeper, so it’s an annoyance but something that she can live with. “I’m just—“

“You miss her,” her mother says softly, sitting down across from her at the kitchen island, pushing a freshly made cup of tea her way. And the concern is still there on her face, but when Lindsey looks closer, it’s different than the bone white worry she’d seen while ill. This is softer, gentler; it reminds Lindsey of when she was in school, coming home with her school-day woes. How her mother would come up to her room and sit on the edge of her bed, stroking her back until Lindsey finally, finally gave in, spilling out all her broken-hearted secrets.

The brunette considers denying it, telling her mom that she’s just tired. She even considers telling her mother that she’s right, that she’s feeling unwell again. And for a moment, Lindsey opens her mouth to do just that.

But she’s spent too long in denial. First to survive and then because it was just easier, more familiar. And lastly—

And lastly, in fear.

Because admitting what she felt, what she wanted, even to herself, could be the first step in a long, long fall. One that left her broken and alone, with nothing. With no one. Except she feels pretty broken right now. She feels pretty alone.

“I asked her to stay,” Lindsey whispers, letting her head fall onto her arms where they’re crossed on the counter. “She wasn’t—I asked her to come back to Portland with me, and then I asked her to stay, mom. And she still left.”

Linda nods, pausing for a moment to take a sip from her own steaming mug, looking at her only daughter, her youngest child, with appraising eyes. She could remember the moment she found out that she was having a daughter, how excited she had been to make their little family complete. Married to the only man she’d ever loved, a son and then a daughter. She’d had so many dreams for the life growing inside of her, every tradition rite of passage. Bows and crinoline, piano lessons and ballet. First dances and first dates and every Hollywood cliche, she couldn’t wait to watch her little baby girl walk the familiar path of American girlhood.

And then Lindsey had been born. And every single dream she’d had of her daughter had changed. Into something better. Into someone real. Not a dream, but a living, breathing daughter. Strong in mind and body and heart. Fiercely loving and loyal, smart and funny and so, so driven. Linda loved everything about her, this beautiful girl who exceeded every one of her hopes and dreams.

But there had always been something, some part of Lindsey’s heart that her girl had never been able to fill. Not with soccer, not with her friends, certainly not with Russell. There’s always been something that Lindsey has been waiting for, looking for. Something that her fierce and fearless girl has always seemed so afraid to chase after. As if she could settle for only so much happiness, so much joy. As if the pain of trying for something more, chasing something real ... the possibility of looking and trying and still losing, was too much of a risk for her.

If there was one thing about her daughter that broke her heart, it was this. That Lindsey was so willing to seek excellence in every avenue of her life, except in love. Except in matters of the heart and soul.

Linda reaches across the table to brush some hair back from where it had fallen into Lindsey’s eyes. It had been a long time since she’d seen her daughter so miserable. So miserable over someone who wasn’t her boyfriend. And even then, this was different. Russell’s comings and goings had always made Lindsey angry.

Emily’s departure, this, Lindsey was grieving over. Despondent over.

And it was this that filled Linda with such hope.

“Why did she go?” She asked her daughter gently, careful not to push too hard. But Lindsey lifts her head only to look up at her and shake it sadly.

“Stuff,” Lindsey says quietly, more pouting than anything, “she said she had stuff to do.” And it takes everything in Linda not to laugh at the tone of her daughter’s voice. Grumpy, frustrated, hurt—it’s like they’ve travelled back in time, all the way back to those frustrating adolescent years. When an argument with a friend felt like the end of the world, all passion and distress.

But this isn’t middle school, and Lindsey isn’t twelve any longer.

Lindsey lifts her head, resting it on her palm as she takes a sip of her cooling tea. She meets her mother’s eyes. “What if—,” the athlete takes a breath, suddenly feeling out of breath, winded. But it’s not the virus still winding it’s way out of her system, it’s something older and stronger.

“I think I love her,” she whispers, and simply to say the words out loud, to someone who isn't just her reflection in the mirror, leaves her feeling both too heavy and too light. But when she looks up at her mother, there's no surprise in her eyes, no shock. No anger, no fear.

Just—just a kind of maternal knowing, like her mom has been waiting for her to catch up to something everyone has already known for so long.

"What," Linda says, giving her daughter an unimpressed look, "you think I don't know this?" But then she smiles and takes Lindsey's hand in her own. "You've spent the last four years of your life trying to talk yourself out of loving her. Trying to keep yourself from figuring it out. Maybe it's time to just let it be, let yourself be?"

Lindsey, though, can't shake the anxiety that builds in her belly at the idea that something she thought she'd buried so deeply inside herself hadn't been very well hidden at all. "You knew?" she says, sounding more than a little horrified. "How—?" But her mother gives her a gentle, reassuring smile.

"Honey," her mother says softly, still giving her that encouraging look, "I carried you for nine months inside of me. I can still hear the sound of your first breath when I look at you. You think I don't know who you are, who makes your heart beat faster and your breath catch?" She rises up and walks around the island to where Lindsey is sitting, very quietly, looking very small, and wraps her arms around her daughter. "You think I don't know who you are, my sweet girl?" she asks again, more gentle than a whisper.

And Lindsey just lets herself be held for a moment, head pressed against her mother's chest so close she can hear the older woman's heartbeat, steady and familiar and true. The tears that have been gathering begin to fall onto the warm fabric of her mother's old henley, a "home with nowhere to go" staple since she was a child, but she doesn't bother to wipe them away. She just lets them fall as her mother holds her close, almost rocking back and forth.

"Who am I, mom?" the athlete whispers after a few long moments, sniffling softly as she looks up into her mother's eyes.

 _This_ , Linda thinks to herself, _is the hardest part of parenthood. The part that has no age limit, no boundary between childhood and adulthood. The knowing, and knowing that sometimes you just have to let them go, let them figure things out for themselves._ "You're my baby girl," she says softly, lovingly. "You have one of the biggest hearts I've ever known. You're smart and you're strong and you tolerate no bullshit."

Lindsey smiles at the rare curse word that slips from her mother's mouth. "And if I'm—," she tries to say the words that feel so heavy in her chest, but she can't quite bring herself to give them life yet. But Linda understands, just as she understands that maybe it doesn't matter what the words will be. Just that Lindsey knows the possibilities, the opportunities, exist.

"If you love her," she wipes away the tracks of tears from Lindsey's cheeks. "you owe it to yourself to be brave, to take a chance at being with someone who really, truly, values you, loves you back. Don't you think?" There's no censure in her voice, and she even manages to keep the feelings she'd harbored for years about her daughter's on-again off-again boyfriend at bay. "This," Linda presses her palm over Lindsey's heart, "is the only thing you've ever been afraid to risk. But baby, maybe it's time to find out what it feels like to be in love with someone who can love you back in all the ways you deserve."

She looks up at her mother, feeling her breath catch in her lungs. "What if she doesn't feel the same way? About me, I mean?" And Linda gives her an encouraging smile.

"Honey, she didn't leave because she doesn't love you," her hands comb through Lindsey's long hair, and she remembers all the fights they'd had about detangling the long locks throughout her childhood. _How her baby girl has grown_ , she thinks to herself, indulging in the memories for a moment. "She left because thinking she was alone in love was breaking her heart."

Oh, how Lindsey's eyes snap up to hers, and Linda swallows a chuckle. "You think she came all the way out here, from Sweden, because you used to be roommates? She sat at the dinner table every night with your daddy and me, making small talk while you slept upstairs. She ran errands because she was the only one allowed to actually leave the house and go into a store. She spent every night barely even asleep, listening to you breathe, just needing to make sure you weren't going to end up in the hospital again."

Linda runs her hands up and down the younger woman's arms, before taking her hands into her own and giving them a supportive squeeze. "But I'm not the person you need to hear this from. At some point, you're either going to need to take a leap of faith, or figure out how to move on." With that, she leans forward and kisses her daughter's brow, knowing that Lindsey will need time and space to process all of the things they've just talked about. Knowing that her daughter is just about overwhelmed.

She's climbing up the stairs to the second floor to put away the last of the day's laundry when she hears it, the old familiar **_thwack-thunk_** of a soccer ball hitting the kickboard her husband had made all those years ago when Lindsey was just a child, brought out again for Emily to use during her stay. Her daughter always had processed her feelings physically. Linda smiles to herself. Some things never change.

— — —

It's dark, but Lindsey can't sleep. Her bed feels too big, too empty. And when she lays down, she can still smell the scent of Emily on the pillow she clutches to her chest. So she avoids it, as long as she can. Stays up long past when she should be asleep, according to her doctor, who goes on and on about the complicated recovery that COVID patients can have. But even if she were laying down in bed, trying to fall asleep, she wouldn't be able to. The past week has proven that beyond a doubt. She'd just lay there thinking of Emily, remembering falling in her best friend's arms, remembering the gentle sound of the blonde's voice in her ear, soothing her into the welcoming hold of sleep.

So she doesn't try. She'll fall asleep when she falls asleep, which means, more often than not lately, half-slumped over, an ache in her neck and a crick in her back from the awkward position. But at least she doesn't fall asleep to Emily's absence, to the memories.

Instead, she scrolls through her phone, a little time on Instagram, a little time on Twitter. Her text messages, pictures from the teammate who had agreed to watch Ferg while she was planning to be away, and then continued to watch him when she got sick and all the plans changed. She doesn't mean to hit Emily's name— ** _Dasani_** —it's just habit. More often than not, there's always a message waiting from her best friend. Except for the last few days, this awkward gulf between them.

So it's an accident, opening the text chain. But what she sees there, by some miraculous coincidence, she can't take as anything other than a sign.

Three little dots, bouncing and disappearing. Appearing and bouncing again before they stop. Repeated and repeated and repeated. As if the woman on the other end of the line can't quite figure out what to say. Or, and Lindsey's not sure if this option is better or worse, she's composing some kind of epic message, full paragraphs of what she can only assume will break her heart. Still, she can't look away. Can't close the message app and put down her phone.

Lindsey feels her chest ache, her lungs grow heavy with anxiety. And she knows she has a choice. Just as she knows that this awkward stand-off between them will only end one way—when one of them is brave enough to take the first step.

She closes her eyes, hearing her mother's voice in her head, before opening them again with a nod just to herself.

 _Hi_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About damn time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by "listen on repeat" mode.

_Hi_ , Lindsey types out, hitting send before her brain can talk her heart out of it.

 _Hi_ , she types out, a wish and a hope and a prayer all in one. Maybe it should have been an apology instead. Because she types “hi” and the three dots on the other end disappear. She types “hi” and gets nothing but silence in return.

Still, Linda didn’t raise a quitter. So Lindsey doesn’t stop. Honestly, she’s not sure she could even if she wanted to. It’s not every day, and it’s not always something as simple as “hi,” but she keeps the one-sided contact going. Even though it hurts.

Maybe especially because it hurts.

Because, when she thinks back, she made Emily wait for so long.

It’s only fair that Lindsey practice a little patience now.

— — —

— _Back to the gym, sani sani sani, I feel so slow —_

— _Hey —_

— _Remember when you dropped the avo toast and gave me the floor-one? Mike did the same thing today —_

— _I hope you have a good day, Dasani —_

— _Merry Christmas —_

— _Hi —_

— _I hope you’re doing good, Sonny —_

— _Hi —_

— _Hi_ —

— _Hi_ —

— — —

Lindsey reports early to the first camp of the year, eager to finally have something to do, of course, but also at the request of her National Team medical group. COVID, of course, just won’t let her slip back into her life without a fight.

There are tests, dozens of them. Blood tests, tests to gauge her renal function, hepatic function, even a brain scan. She’s not just a patient who has recovered from COVID, they tell her, she’s a case study. But Lindsey doesn’t care, not as long as they’ll still clear her to play, to suit up for team training and maybe even a match. That’s the real issue to determine as far as she’s concerned, whether COVID did any long-term or permanent damage to her lungs, her heart.

She’s given a gown to wear as they put her through imaging. She’s given a set of brand new training gear to put on before they get her on the treadmill, measuring everything from her oxygen saturation to the volume of blood pumping through the chambers of her heart to the amount of sweat she’s putting out in response to the activity. They ask her the same questions over and over and over again, and she lies to them. Every time.

Because she can’t tell them the truth.

Yes, her chest hurts.

Yes, it hurts to breathe.

Yes, sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night, out of breath and heart racing.

No, her symptoms have nothing to do with the virus. Nothing to do with anything but the deepest blue eyes she’s ever seen, the softest touch, the sweetest smile.

The tests continue, all the way up to the day before the rest of the team is supposed to arrive. Pulmonary function again, another scan of her heart, probably more blood. But if it gets her on the field for a real practice with her teammates, Lindsey would do them all ten times over.

— — —

She’s running on the treadmill, sweat dripping down her chest, soaking into her sports bra, when Emily comes in. But Lindsey doesn’t see her, not with her back to the door. She’s too busy trying to pass this test—because that’s how it feels to her, a pass/fail, straight out of school. Either she gets a number that will make the doctor sign off on her return, or she doesn’t, and it’s back to rehabbing. All her focus is on the electrodes taped to her chest, the mask covering her mouth and nose, the steady pounding of her feet against the treadmill beneath her. She blocks out everything and everyone, so singular is her drive, that it takes the tech tapping on her arm to let her know she can start her cool down.

It’s only when Lindsey turns, catching the towel that’s tossed toward her, that she sees the familiar blonde in the corner, just sitting there on a desk with an identical towel over her shoulders. There’s a water bottle at her side, and she’s dressed almost identically—sports bra and training shorts. Even down to the shoes, a pair of the most recent running trainers in Adidas’ line. And the taller woman is glad that the electrodes have been removed, at least, so that the way her heart jumps at seeing her best friend, the woman she loves, isn’t caught on record. So that it can’t be misinterpreted as anything but what it is, her own private joy. Maybe a little fear mixed in.

“Hey,” Emily says, sounding so normal that Lindsey has to wonder if the last few months had really happened. “Everything okay with you?” And she points her water bottle toward the monitors. Lindsey hears it then, what anyone who hadn’t spent the last five years falling in love with Emily would have missed. But Lindsey doesn’t miss it, she couldn’t have, not so attuned to all of the blonde’s tells as she is.

 _Not all of them_ , her heart whispers, _you missed the biggest one for so long._

But Lindsey forces the voice away. Because she knows it’s wrong. She’d never missed it. She’d just refused to acknowledge it, Emily’s feelings for her. She’d known, and that’s the reason she’ll wait as long as Emily needs her to. It’s the penance she has to pay.

“What are you doing here, I didn’t think anyone else was reporting until tomorrow?” Lindsey asks instead of answering the question. Because the truth is, she doesn’t know. The truth is that there are different ways to answer, and she’s not certain which way Emily means.

“I live here, remember?” Emily counters, sliding off the desk. “I came in to get some training in. I wasn’t expecting to see you here though. Because, you know,” she gestures with her hands, “camp doesn’t start until tomorrow.” And there’s a grin there somewhere, behind the nerves and the careful distance that’s between them at the moment.

“Point,” Lindsey acknowledges, and she smiles, because she knows that if she does, soon enough, Emily will give in too. And it doesn’t take long.

Emily wanders over to the monitors, looking at them as if they mean something to her. “So, really, are you okay? I know that COVID has long—“

“I’m good,” Lindsey assures her softly. “No long-term damage. The tests now are just to see whether I’m good for full-training again, or if I’m going to be red-shirted this camp.” She watches as Emily runs her fingers over the handlebars of the treadmill, stepping over the wires and cords.

“Right,” Emily says, and the space between who they are now and who they used to be makes Lindsey profoundly sad. But it’s nothing compared to the pain of the distance between who they are now and who she hopes they can be. “I should go and—,” she nods to the hall, body shifting as if to go.

“You haven’t—,” Lindsey says at the same time, feeling her heart thundering in her chest. She swallows before continuing, needing just a second to conjure up the bravery for the question she has to ask. “Are we okay?” The words come out sounding so delicate, hope suspended on a fragile breath of air. And she watches as Emily collapses a little in on herself. It’s almost imperceptible, how her lungs deflate, how her shoulders round, as if she could make herself smaller, protect herself, from the hurt that sits between them.

Emily’s fingers tighten on her water bottle, ice white against the purple metal. But then the mask shifts into place, and she lifts her head, smiling that bright, Sonny smile, and Lindsey feels suddenly both cold and warm in its light. “Of course, Linds,” she says, and even Lindsey is impressed at the way the words don’t tremble as they slip from her lips. “We’re good. You’re healthy again and I’m figuring out Orlando ...”

The words drift off into the silence, weightless and dishonest, and Lindsey swallows hard. Orlando, she knows, is just another word for life without her. “Dasani,” she whispers, but Emily sucks in a breath and goes stiff, stumbling over an awkward goodbye as she escapes from the room as quickly as she can. And Lindsey is left alone, muscles aching in that old familiar way after an extended exertion, like playing a full-90, or the last practice in a week of three-a-days.

And if she clutches the towel to her chest—

If she swallows back the tears that threaten, holds the howl of hurt and anger and loss that builds within her lungs—

If she bites her lip until she can taste the blood against her tongue, well, she's alone.

She's alone.

So there's no one there to say if it happened at all.

— — —

"So," Kelley throws open the adjoining door between their rooms, "I hear you're ready to get out there and break some ankles again." She sits on the floor at the foot of one of the beds in her room, perfectly positioned to look into Lindsey's room and have a conversation from the required six-feet social distancing parameter they've all promised to follow until the last round of COVID tests have come back. And Lindsey knows that she'll keep sitting there, waiting, until she gets what she wants.

Which, right now, seems to be a conversation.

Lindsey sits down with a sigh, mirroring Kelley in the other room, and resigns herself to whatever awaits her. "Got the green light today, all systems normal," she nods, and can't help but smile when Kelley rolls a soccer ball over to her, playing the same game people play with babies just old enough to understand the dynamics of applying force to an object in a state of rest. Her teammate nods, and they spend a few moments rolling the ball back and forth before Kelley gets down to what Lindsey had already known this was all about.

There's some history between Emily and Kelley that Lindsey has never quite sussed out. And Emily has been remarkably close-lipped about it, which up until this very moment had never bothered the taller woman.

But it bothers her now.

It bothers her because Kelley is looking at her like she's half torn between respecting the line that has so clearly been drawn in the sand by Emily, and crossing it, like some kind of emotional strikebreaker.

It bothers her because she can see it, so clearly, what they could have—might have—been to each other, Emily and Kelley. Two women molded by the same red clay, haunted by the same ghosts. God and country and blood, threads all weaving in and out and around each other until they become their own sort of holy trinity. Some kind of religion all the more powerful for the ways it can hurt you.

Lindsey sees it in them both, the struggle. Being and becoming. Who they are, the delicate shoots that spring from the cenotaph of the trees their parents believed they had planted. Years and decades and the spindly roots of expectations, hopes and dreams. Not broken, just shifted. She feels it too, the call. Maybe not as keenly, maybe not as deep. The soil in Colorado is a sandy sort, there’s so much more room to become than in the thick clay of the Georgia mud.

But she feels it too.

And she’s so tired of letting it hold her down.

“She left without a word,” Kelley starts, and for a moment, Lindsey is confused. Because Emily hadn’t left without a word. She’d left with a very polite but empty goodbye.

She’d stayed away without saying anything.

But Kelley continues, and the younger woman realizes she’s talking about before. Before Colorado. Before Lindsey had learned what the ache in her belly every time she’d looked at her best friend had meant.

“We woke up the morning after the match, and she was gone,” Kelley says quietly, and it’s clear that this isn’t going to be a conversation. Not yet. “It took almost a day for them to finally give in and tell us where she’d gone. Or confirm, really. Because some of us—I—knew from the moment her seat was empty at breakfast.”

The older woman looks at her, and Lindsey feels the instinct to cower a little, to shield herself from Kelley’s penetrating gaze. But she manages to hold up under it well enough, or she thinks so anyway. “When we got the news that you weren’t coming, she took it as well as any of us. Better, honestly. Sam, of course, started to cry, she was so worried,” Kelley remembers. “And Rose didn’t even make fun of her for it, not one word, which is how we all knew that she was freaking out under everything.”

Lindsey picks at threads in the rough hotel carpet, listening intently, but unwilling to look Kelley in the eye. Unable, more, really. Because she is afraid of what she might see there. Anger, annoyance.

Pity.

That, Lindsey thinks, would be the worst of all. Confirmation of what she knows is coming. The answer to the question she hasn’t been able to ask yet.

“Sonny, though,” Lindsey can hear the way Kelley shifts against the bed, pulling her legs in and assuming, maybe even unconsciously, some yoga pose the younger woman can only assume she’s learned from Christen. "Sonny just went on like nothing was wrong. The coaching staff gave us the news that you'd tested positive and everyone who'd ever played with the two of you before turned to look at her, and—" Kelley pauses as if she needs a moment to picture it again, the sterile hotel conference room, chairs spread apart, full of women who had seen each other through any number of triumphs and heartaches in their time together.

"—she just sat there, just like any other camp meeting," the defender's voice is a little rougher now, there's a hollow note in the regularly rich timbre. "And then after about a minute, when Vlatko opened it up for questions, she asked if we should plan on preparing for two- or three-a-days."

Lindsey breathes in slowly, because she can see it too. Emily, always so jovial and eager for a laugh, serious and stoic. Because—

"She buried it, all the worry and the fear. Just like she's buried every real feeling she's had for you for years. We could see it, we could all see it. How she wanted and yearned for you to really look at her, to notice her. But you never did, Lindsey—she's loved you for long, so deeply, that that girl forgot she had the right to exist outside of loving you. She forgot that there is a part of her that existed before you, and a part that will exist after. And you never did. You never really saw her, did you?"

There it is.

The truth.

The accusation.

"Kelley, I—" Lindsey tries to say something, but she can't. The words catch on her tongue, tied in knots she never learned to undo, badges she never earned. Kelley's standing now, crossing the split in the carpet that marks the transition from one room into another. And Lindsey looks up at her, feeling so, so small. She can feel the heat of Kelley's eyes, her ire.

"Do you have any idea?" the older woman asks, and there's a voice somewhere deep in the back of Lindsey's head that is grateful that, for the next few matches at least, they'll be wearing the same kit. "What it's like to love someone the way she loves you? Love them in a way so impossible and so forbidden that you have to bury it, have to pretend like it doesn't matter and it can't hurt you because the person you're in love with, the woman you have so much would walk away for knowing how you feel?" And then Kelley goes silent, standing there, looking down at Lindsey, and there's a charge in the air, a current of pain and history and secrets.

Lindsey hears the hitch in Kelley's breath as she realizes, and wonders if it's written on her face. If, like Emily had for so long, she'll have to learn to live with a heart that can be seen so easily, that makes itself seen so openly.

“So, you know,” Kelley says, because it’s not a question. “You finally figured it out, how you feel.”

And it’s then that Lindsey lets the tears that have been brimming for days, for weeks, for goddamn months, fall. Lets them stream down her face, drip down her neck, soak the thick fabric of her favorite old hoodie, until she can feel the dampness spreading against her skin. Kelley watches without offering comfort, and for that, Lindsey is glad. Because that, she couldn't handle.

"I love her," Lindsey says, and the words come easy now. Easier, certainly, than that first soul-shaking admission to her mother. Easier now that she's spent the last several weeks rolling them around on her tongue, whispering them to herself in the dark. They've become their own kind of prayer, a mantra she holds in her thoughts as she winds her way through the days. They're the beat she runs to on the treadmill, the sound of the ball hitting the back of the net, the distance from cone to cone as she completes drill after drill after drill with her trainers.

"I love her," she says again, and shrugs her shoulders, like this is some simple thing, like it's anything but a declaration that will shake this world they inhabit to its foundations. The ripples of this confession will echo out, touching everything. Teams and teammates, endorsements and sponsorships, their status with the Federation, fans, family, friends. Nothing will be untouched. But Lindsey has stopped caring about what bridges she might burn by accepting, by openly loving Emily. She's far, far, far more interested in what beautiful new life might rise from the ashes.

Kelley's hands fall from where she's placed them on her hips, standing above the younger woman like a superhero, and she leans against the doorframe, looking more casual, less angry, in an instant. "Yeah," she lets out a long-frustrated breath, "obviously." And with a sigh, the defender sits again, but doesn't return to their earlier distance. "You sure were stubborn about it though," Kelley nudges her thigh with the toe of her tie-dyed socks, "and you hurt her pretty badly over the years, whether she'll ever admit it to you or not."

"Yeah," Lindsey says softly, not looking up at her teammate, her friend. Because she knows. "She buries everything that doesn't fit," the midfielder blew out an angry breath. The anger, as often of late, is directed at herself, and herself alone. "And I convinced her that we didn't fit. Every time," Lindsey scowls, "I made myself not see it, see her." She looks up at Kelley, "Have you talked to her?" She needs to know.

The older woman nods. "She called me from the airport, the day she left Colorado, told me everything that had happened, or enough. More as we kept talking over the last few weeks." Kelley seems to be considering how much to share. "How something flipped and she couldn't keep pretending that she was okay waiting for you. That it was too big to bury any longer. That she had to let you go before her hoping and her wanting hurt you both."

The words sink in slowly. And then they her. Hard. Like a line drive free kick right to the chest, and she can't breathe for the impact. For the pain.

She can't breathe.

She can't breathe.

She can't breathe and she can't breathe and she can't—

"Hey, hey," Kelley snaps her fingers loudly just in front of Lindsey's nose, and she opens her eyes to see the other woman even closer than before. There's a hand on her back, centering her, grounding her, and she focuses on that, on the gentle—if undeserved—comfort she's being offered.

Until she can breathe again.

Kelley takes her hands and squeezes them, hard, forcing her to look up, to focus in on her, and Lindsey sucks in a pained breath before nodding. "Your first panic attack?" the older woman asks, but Lindsey shakes her head. She's had them before, though they've become infrequent over the last few years.

"Been awhile, though," the midfielder admits, and she doesn't let Kelley's hands go just yet. "They were getting better for a long time, it's just—." The defender nods in understanding.

"This last year has really been shit, hasn't it," Kelley says quietly, and for a long moment, the two of them just sit there, thinking, remembering.

"I'm not wasting any more time," Lindsey whispers softly, almost surprising herself with the sound of her own voice. "I'm done—I don't care what happens. I know she's running," she looks over to Kelley, "I know that I'm the reason she's running. Because it took me so long to realize what I wanted, to realize that it was okay to want it, want her." And the older woman gives her the time, the space, to continue. "But I'm going to chase her," she's squeezing Kelley's hands so tight it almost hurts, but she just nods with her, encouraging her, "I'm going to show her she's worth running after."

And Kelley grins at her. "About damn time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real heroes are the ones who saw me confuse Sweden for Switzerland in the last chapter and were like "let's just let her have this one."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Best laid plans of Rose Lavelle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk if I like this chapter. I feel likes it’s rushed?

Lindsey's done wasting time, but still, she has to wait. Because camp isn't the place to have this conversation with Emily, isn't the place to bare her soul to the woman she loves. Isn't the place to ask Emily to forgive her, take a chance on her, love her back.

If there's one thing to be grateful to this goddamned virus for, she supposed, it's the distance they're required to observe. It lets her pretend that everything could be normal if not for COVID. It means she has the time to think and reflect and plan. It means she doesn't have to look longingly after Emily every time the blonde chooses someone who isn't her to spend time with.

If not for the virus, the way it’s changed how they can all interact together at camp, it would be so much harder to hide the change between them, the way Emily treats her so—so lightly. Like there aren’t years of history between them, behind them.

But it’s easy enough to pretend in the group chat, and so she does.

If there's one thing Lindsey is an expert at, after all, it's pretending.

— — —

There's one afternoon and evening left before they're all slated to head home, spend a few last days with their families before reporting to their teams for pre-season. Just a few hours left and Lindsey can feel the pressure mounting, the weight on her chest increasing. Just a few short hours until morning, until Lindsey makes that life-changing choice and follows Emily home instead of catching her flight, and Rose, of course, of all their teammates, plans an elaborate prison break. A few hours of freedom after three weeks of what feels like captivity.

"Come onnnnn," Rose groans from where she stands, just inside the door of Lindsey's room, the furthest the larger woman would allow her in. "Do you know how much I had to bribe the interns for the keys to the vans? We only have a few hours and if you go any slower we might as well just stay here."

Lindsey just flips her off and continues to dig through the covers on the bed for what she's looking for—there, where she'd thrown it that morning. It's nothing, it's just a t-shirt. Not even one that means anything. Or not anything that anyone else would understand, anyway.

But she'd found it in a fit of angst-driven tidying, kicked under her bed back in Colorado, the simple white t-shirt, the hole just under the collar, the slight stain just above the hem on the side. It's only just big enough to fit her comfortably, which makes her think of how it would fall over the lines of Emily's body. She'd recognized it immediately, of course, remembering the many nights she'd fallen asleep against the soft fabric while the blonde wearing it was in her bed. But she has only the fuzziest memories of really _seeing_ Emily wear it, seeing the way it fell across her breasts, where the hem of it landed against her thighs.

It doesn't smell like Emily any longer, but it had. It had, at first, when she'd found it. And Lindsey had clutched at it, breathing in the scent of her, until she could no longer distinguish it from her own. Now it’s almost a security blanket of sorts, the first thing she puts on after her nightly shower, feeling the soft, worn, lived-in essence of the fabric against her bare skin.

She slips it on now. Over her dark sports bra, fastening the button of her tight jeans before reaching for her jacket, heavy and leather and black. The perfect representation of her mood tonight, forced into being social even as she contemplates the way she just might lose the one thing—the everything—that matters just as soon as she’s brave enough to take the chance.

“God, finally,” Rose pushes off from the doorway she’s been leaning against, and reaches to grab Lindsey’s hand, hesitating and thinking better of it at the last second. “Everyone is already down and waiting for you in the parking garage.”

“Us,” Lindsey mutters to herself, “they’re waiting for us.” But if the smaller woman hears her, she doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she turns as they wait in the hall for the elevator to look at Lindsey incredulously.

Her eyes narrow as she looks at the older woman. "Seriously? You made us late so you could find a boring white t-shirt?" Rose scoffed at her, "What is even going on with you lately. Did the COVID get inside your brain too?"

Lindsey just ignores her, she’s had plenty of practice at that too. But Rose knows her almost as well as Emily does. “What happened between you and Sonny,” she asks as they step into the elevator, “the two of you have been weird this whole camp.” And the space is too small for her to avoid her friend's eyes, and the question is too serious for her to ignore it.

The taller woman sighs, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jacket. "We had a—" but Rose interrupts her.

"She finally make a move?" the excitable woman asks. "I wondered if she'd ever grow the balls to—." Lindsey claps a hand over Rose's mouth with a desperation she hadn't often felt in her life. But Rose only bites at her palm through her mask, and the older woman steps back swearing. "She did, didn't she. And you what, rejected her?" The other girl almost glows in the fluorescent light of the elevator and Lindsey wonders how long it will take them to get to the parking garage, half-considering pushing the button again just in case it will make them go faster.

Rose punches her in the arm, and Lindsey swears, unable to swallow back the sharp cry at the feeling of her friend’s bony knuckles. “Fuck, Rose, that hurt,” she looks at the shorter woman. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

“Because you’re an idiot,” the brunette says, and Lindsey’s not certain she’s ever heard her friend so angry before. Off the field, at least. But Rose has the wrong idea, and Lindsey tries to explain as much, but the doors open to reveal the parking garage beyond, and she can’t. She can’t. Because the group is standing right there, waiting for them. Sam and Kristie and Kelley and ... and Emily.

Emily, who’s standing there in black leggings and a hoodie from their favorite breakfast place in Portland, a ridiculously big scarf wound around her neck and shoulders almost like a shawl. And God, Lindsey aches, because she’s thinking of all the times she could have just sat across from the blonde at that restaurant, basking in her presence, just soaking in how beautiful Emily is, so close to realizing what she was feeling at the time and yet so, so, so far. She has wasted so much time, and it’s that realization that stops her in her tracks when she sees the blonde.

Rose gives her a weird look, seeing her standing in the middle of the aisle still, like she’s asking to get hit by a car or something, and shakes her head. “Okay, girlies,” the enthusiastic younger woman claps her hands together, “are we ready for some fun?”

— — —

Lindsey ends up crammed in the back with Kelley and the Mewis sisters, all enthusiastically chattering about something—she lost track of the conversation forever ago—as she looks past the two blonde heads in the middle row to Emily, sitting shotgun next to Rose. She hadn’t missed how the older woman had so smoothly just hopped up into the front passenger seat, silencing Kelley’s instinct to object on the grounds of age or beauty or whatever she could come up with on the spot with a single look. And it felt off balance now, the van, the arrangement of women. Because Emily always took the seat next to her, and everyone knew it.

If anyone had been unaware of the break between them before, they weren’t now.

“Okay,” Rose parks in a public parking area downtown, turning around to her captive teammates after she turned the key in the ignition, “we’re going on a scavenger hunt.” She claps her hands together with the kind of manufactured enthusiasm that makes her sound like an over-eager preschool teacher. “And we’re picking teams—“

“Oldest picks first,” Kelley says, and Lindsey breathes a sigh of relief because this doesn’t have to be awkward now, Kelley will pick her and the Mewises will be together and then Rose and Em—, “I want Rosie.”

And the words don’t process right away, because Lindsey is still nodding when Kelley pokes Kristie on the shoulder, “You’re next, Mew-One, who are you taking, Sam, Linds, or Em?” But they sink in fast enough now, and Lindsey stares desperately at the older Mewis sister, begging with her eyes. Because if Kristie picks her or Emily, everything will be okay, everything will work out just—

“The Mewisters will be kicking all your asses,” Kristie says smugly, not even looking a little sorry at the way she’s just abandoned Lindsey to—to—Lindsey looks up to Emily, and sees the even expression in those blue eyes. But she knows, she _knows_ , how deep those rivers run. She knows Emily’s tells, the way the corners of her mouth tremble, how she blinks a little too fast, looks away when someone meets her eyes. Lindsey knows her, and knows, too, that it’s time to make things right.

“Great, then the last team is me and Dasani,” she says with more confidence than she feels, and give as close to a natural smile as she can manage. And Lindsey doesn’t miss the approving look Rose gives her, or the way Kelley squeezes her knee.

“Great,” Rose grins again, and pulls out her phone, “I’ve just texted the list to everybody. The rules are simple—you have to take a picture of one of you with the item—no Googling and just stealing photos from online,” she warns them, even though if there was a group most likely to cheat like that, or as Kelley would say, “creatively interpret” the guidelines, it was Team Lavelle/O’Hara. “First team to get them all wins the grand prize—“

She pauses for effect before holding up a large faux first place medal on a colorful ribbon, “—this gem, entirely made out of chocolate ... beginning ... now!” And Rose is out of the car like a shot, laughing as the women in the back scramble over each other to get out. Everyone but Lindsey, who sits there, just looking at Emily in the front seat.

And then they’re alone.

“Do you think she brought that with her from England?” Lindsey asks, trying to break some of the tension between them. But Emily doesn’t answer, not right away. She just looks at Lindsey, tentative, cautious, and the younger woman hates how something that had always been so easy—the two of them—now feels so hard.

“We should get started,” the blonde says finally, after the silence between them becomes unbearable, “you know if we don’t win the ones who do are just going to be unsufferable about it.” And she makes to undo her seatbelt, reaching for the bag she’d shoved between the two front seats.

But Lindsey leans forward, climbing over the seats to sit where Kristie had been, reaching for Emily’s fingers where they tremble around the strap of her backpack. “Dasani,” she whispers, and tugs, gentle enough, but insistent. Until the other woman relents and lets herself be pulled into the middle seat.

And now they’re facing each other, closer than they’ve been since Lindsey was sick, and she rests her fingers of a hand against the warm curve of Emily’s jaw, thumb stroking over her cheek. “Emily,” Lindsey whispers, and her voice is thick with the weeks and months of grief, of fear. Everything she sees reflected back at her in the blonde’s eyes. But Lindsey has resolved—she can be patient, she can be gentle and slow and everything that Emily needs her to be.

“I’ve missed you,” she says simply, honestly, resting her palm against the older woman’s cheek, and there’s a thrill of hope inside her at the way Emily seems to turn into the touch. A softness that has always been between them, but hidden under the facade of friendship. Now there’s no pretense, no teammates or best friends. Lindsey lets Emily see—feel—her barest feelings, the soft whole way she loves her. Everything she should have let surface from the start.

Emily’s breath hitches, and she brings her own hand up, laying it over Lindsey’s against her cheek, eyes closed, and just—just being. For a moment, anyway. Just being with Lindsey. “We should get started before they get too far ahead of us,” she says softly after a minute, opening her eyes to meet Lindsey’s for what feels like the first time, the first time in forever anyway.

Lindsey nods, pulling her hand back slowly, but not before one final brush of her fingers over Emily’s jaw. And as they step out of the van, she breathes easier than she has in months. They’re not fixed, not by far.

But they’re not broken anymore either.

— — —

They’re almost done with their hunt, just a few more things to cross off before they can head back to the van, hopefully to wait for the others and gloat about their win. They’ve stopped for a short break at a small café just a ways away from where they’d parked earlier, needing a moment to assess their status and a warm drink to help keep the late afternoon chill at bay a little longer.

“Okay,” Emily says, looking at the list on her phone, “so we found someone wearing a blue hat, we found an alligator wearing human clothes, we found things that look like the first letters of our names.” She’s marking off the items as she recites them, but Lindsey isn’t paying attention. At least not to what she’s saying. And Emily can’t help but blush when she looks up, seeing how intently the younger woman is watching her face, her lips.

“Linds,” she says softly, fingertips hovering over the skin of the brunette’s arm, “Linessi—.” The word, the name, it slips out. It slips out but it feels like coming home. And Emily’s heart skids a little as she watches the look spread over the other woman’s face.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” Lindsey asks her, looking up to meet her eyes, cheeks red at being caught.

There’s a click in the older woman's heart as the parts of them that were broken fall back into place. Not healed over, not by far. But set and ready to heal, to scar over, the new tissue stronger than the old. And it’s enough. Enough to give Emily the courage she needs.

“I don’t care,” the blonde whispers, and Lindsey starts, shifting back in the wrought iron chair. But before the blank mask can fall, can cover the first pangs of fear and hurt that Emily can see reflected in those steely eyes, the older woman touches her arm. “I mean, I don’t care if we lose,” Emily clarifies, her hand settling over Lindsey’s. “Let them win,” she whispers, “I just want to talk with you. Like we used to. Like—like before.”

And Lindsey can’t help it if her mouth falls open for a moment while the words sink in. The idea that Emily would let Kristie and Sam, or, God, Kelley and Rose, win at something. And all so they can talk, so they can be together, alone, without the pressure of their friends, their jobs, the rest of the world for at least a little while. “I—I’d like that, I’d really like that,” she stutters over the words a little in her haste to respond, but Emily just smiles at her, and squeezes her hand while they sit for a moment in silence, collecting their thoughts, all the things they want—they need—to say.

Emily starts. Maybe because she can feel how delicate the moment is, how terrified Lindsey is of saying something that will just make everything worse. So she takes a breath, and begins. “I shouldn’t have left like that,” she puts her phone down, off now, and watches Lindsey’s face, watches the way the younger woman almost leaps forward in her attempt to interject. “No, wait,” Emily continues, the gentle squeeze of her hand enough to settle Lindsey for the moment, “let me.”

“You were sick,” Emily thinks about the plane ride back to the States, the white-knuckle grip she’d kept on her phone the whole time, terrified of an update, imagination swirling with thoughts of all the COVID horror stories she’d heard over the last weeks and months. She hadn’t been sure what she’d do if she got off the plane and her worst fears had been realized.

And when she had gotten off, and received the text from Mike with an update, the news that Lindsey was already home and doing better, Emily hadn’t been able to keep the tears back any longer. She’d found a somewhat private bathroom and wept her heart out, shaking at the thought of what could have been lost. Years of repressing, oppressing, her feelings for her best friend overwhelming her at once.

Everything after, every moment she’d had with Lindsey as the other woman recovered, Emily hadn’t been able to push all those feelings back down under. She’d felt them, in all their beauty and all their complications, deeper and deeper with every passing day. Raw and aching, so afraid of them. So afraid of Lindsey, of looking, of what she might see.

Honestly, even now Emily isn’t sure what frightened her more, seeing nothing there or seeing everything she was feeling reflected back at her.

“You were sick,” she repeats, “and we got—we got closer than we ever had before.” Lindsey nods in agreement, but she doesn't interrupt. Not when Emily is finally talking to her. “And I was just so glad that you were okay, that you were going to be okay, that I stopped working so hard to keep the walls up between us.” The blonde takes a deep breath. "I shouldn't have left, though, I shouldn't have run away—"

Now Lindsey needs to say something, leaning forward and waiting until Emily looks at her, until she can see those cornflower blue eyes, straight through to the blonde's heart, she feels. And what she sees, what she feels, looking into Emily's eyes, it's overwhelming. It warms her from within, pushing back the chill of the breeze as they sit in the outdoor patio of the café, and for the first time since Emily walked away in Colorado, Lindsey feels like she can breathe again. Easily, unburdened.

"You had to," she says softly now, and closes her fingers over her palm to keep from reaching out, from touching the older woman across from her. "You needed to leave and I needed you to leave." Lindsey hopes that Emily can see everything she's feeling, everything she knows and believes with her whole heart. "Because if you hadn't, I think—"

Lindsey shakes her head, thinking of the moment when she had realized everything had changed. The moment she had known that nothing would ever be the same.

"Dasani," Lindsey whispers, and now she does reach out, now she does take Emily's hand, lacing their fingers together, linking them, strong and unbreakable. "I've been in love with you for a long time," she says, her heart thundering inside of her chest. But it's not like the heavy stampede of panic that she'd been living with for weeks now. No, this is light, joyful. It's a dance, rhythm and groove, that seems to sing through her blood, spreading through her veins. "I was afraid—I was so afraid. That I couldn't be who I thought I wanted to be if I let myself love you. That I couldn't be who I thought everyone else wanted me to be." She feels Emily's fingers tighten around her own, and Lindsey chances a gentle smile.

Emily is still, so still. Like she's bracing herself for a fall, perhaps. But Lindsey moves in closer. She's ready now, she's ready to fall with the blonde. Ready to take that chance, to make that promise.

"I buried it, denied it. Because it was easier. But I knew, even if I couldn't say the words, even if I couldn't understand them, not fully. And I knew, too, how you felt." There's guilt there, an aching ball of it that will take an age or two to disappear. "I knew some hint of it anyway," Lindsey looks away, "and I let it go on because it was easier. It was easier to pretend that we were just friends. Just an accident or a coincidence, you know?"

She feels the blonde's eyes on her and looks back, seeing the red there, the tears gathering. And Lindsey stumbles, hesitates, afraid that her biggest fear is coming true. That she'll lay everything out, lay herself bare before this woman.

That it won't be enough.

That she won't be enough.

And then there are fingers on her cheek, a soft palm against her jaw. "Linds," Emily whispers, and her name has never sounded softer, sweeter, more loved, than it does now, falling from the blonde's lips.

"We were never an accident," Lindsey whispers, forehead to forehead. "Everything, the good things and the bad, every moment," she looks into Emily's eyes and sees the whole world there, just waiting for them both, "everything I have ever been—it's all been leading me to you."

The need, the fire so carefully banked for so long, it surges within her, embers igniting with a heat blue and white and all-consuming.

And it would have been perfect, the perfect first kiss.

Fierce need building to soft love.

It would have been.

If not for the exasperated sigh from behind them, just out of sight. And they turn, seeing the gathered crowd of their teammates there, Rose and Kelley, Kristie and Sam. They look all kinds of amused, standing there with bags of leftover food from a restaurant that Lindsey remembers seeing earlier on their quest, a few blocks away.

"Have you two finally figured out your shit?" Rose asks, and the grin on her face has them both immediately suspicious, pulling apart just the slightest, though not completely. Emily's hand slips down from the taller woman's check to rest against the back of her neck, and Lindsey can't help the sigh, the tiniest of shivers, at the touch. And the moment isn't lost, only delayed. Only paused while they deal with their strangely beaming friends.

Lindsey takes a sip from her now-cold coffee, eyeing the four of them intently. "Who won," she says though she's already figured out the ruse. And Sam, God bless her, has the decency to blush. They can always count on Sam to spill the details, their perfect Panic Petunia.

Emily looks back and forth between the group and Lindsey until the looks on everyone's faces give away the secret. "We get the damn medal," she says, and there's an adorably affronted look on her face, one that makes Lindsey want to pull her close, wrap her up until the grumpy look on her face disappears. And then the younger woman remembers that they're among friends—idiots, maybe, but friends, at least—and that Emily knows, now, how she feels. And so she does it, wrapping her arm around the shorter woman's waist and tugging her close as they gather their things to follow the group back to the van.

"You guys good, everything okay?" Kelley asks softly, her usual brusqueness supplanted by a softer, sisterly concern.

And Lindsey nods. "Getting there," she says, and feels Emily take her hand, squeeze it tight.

They're getting there.

They're on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be an epilogue. 
> 
> There will be a soundtrack.


	8. The Soundtrack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Songs that drove the fic.

Link to [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3zJm9uG6xBZxKUSQ0fDqF7?si=zjZyqUw1TjK5jB8XUW0wAw) on Spotify

_**Tracklist** _

  1. “Down 24,” Nathaniel David Knox
  2. “Colorado,” Vintz Desert
  3. “Serenity,” DEWR
  4. “Your Heart,” Graymarker
  5. “Heart on My Sleeve,” Cari Barr
  6. “A Home She Made,” Callan John
  7. “Sentimental,” Alex Owens
  8. “No More Fire Escapes,” The Tinlings
  9. “Don’t Give Up (Yet),” Ski Team
  10. “Sisyphus,” Cedar Lake
  11. “Colossus,” Nisa
  12. “Blocking the Door,” Hercules Mulligan (feat. Sami Freeman)
  13. “Friends (Here I Go Again),” James Lindsey
  14. “Paint,” Lawson Hull (feat. Lily Kershaw)
  15. “She Burns,” Foy Vance



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every one means something.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hi,” Lindsey says when Emily opens the door, hair still sleep-mussed, eyes blinking away the bright Orlando sunrise. She smiles at the blonde, the kind of wide and free smile that she’s just started to realize is reserved for soccer and Emily. The two things she loves the most.

The older woman gives her a confused look in return, and Lindsey laughs softly. “Surprise?” she holds out her offering, a box of baked goods from the place Ali and Ashlyn had taken them to during a previous camp, before the trade, before COVID, before Lindsey knew why thinking about the relationship of their two teammates filled her both with such a sense of discomfort and also hope. (One day she’s going to have to sit down and have a long talk with herself, confront all the things about herself she’s spent her life hiding from, and maybe, hopefully, figure out how to begin the long process of learning how to forgive the girl, the woman, she has been. So she can focus on being the woman she wants to become.)

“Doughnuts?” Em asks, and there’s a hint of a smile there at the corner of her eyes. She’s never been able to hide a smile completely.

And Lindsey grins, because she knows she’s got her. “Doughnuts,” she nods, “and breakfast.” Lindsey steps to the side to reveal the grocery bags that had been hiding behind her. “I wanted to cook you breakfast, but figured you hadn’t gotten any better about stocking your fridge first thing after a long camp.”

“Are there avocados in one of those bags?” the blonde asks, and Lindsey picks them up, trying to balance everything until Emily reaches out for the bakery box and peeks inside with an approving hum.

The taller woman laughs, and nods. “Of course, Dasani, I’d never make you breakfast without avocado toast.” And even though they’d made some progress during their talk the other day, and even more that night and the next morning, texting back and forth as they lay in bed, as they packed up their things to leave camp, it still feels like a victory when Emily opens the door wider to let her in. “This place is nice,” Lindsey tries to be kind about it, but she can’t help but compare it to the apartment in Portland. For almost a year now, whenever she thinks of Emily she still pictures the blonde in an apartment identical to her own, with inflatable couches and blue and orange Virginia-branded memorabilia everywhere she looked.

Here, though, in Orlando, Emily is a different person. There’s real furniture, and real art on the walls, and the plants—Lindsey had always thought her friend bought too many plants back in Oregon, but here in Florida they’re everywhere. Little bits of green that somehow make the air seem lighter, easier to breathe. It feels—it feels homey in a way the Portland place never did. And maybe that’s because, intentionally or not, she never let Emily think of Portland as a home. From the beginning, she had claimed it as her own, Lindsey had, and shown Emily around it as if she were a native, emboldened by all the stories she’d heard from Tobin over the years.

And Em, fresh out of college with no real experience of living on her own, had just followed her lead. She didn’t need couches because Lindsey had couches just a door over. She didn’t need a lot to cook with because they always ate at Lindsey’s place, watched tv at Lindsey’s place, fell asleep and climbed into bed at Lindsey’s place. Emily’s place had never had to feel like more than a temporary drop-site, and Lindsey had liked it that way because then Emily spent time with her in her apartment surrounded by her things.

It hits her now, how much Emily had put off, put aside for her. Seeing this apartment—sunny, warm, light and fun, full of life and little memories—Lindsey sees the Emily that her best friend has been trying to grow into for years, overshadowed by the larger-than-life presence of The Great Horan and the way the blonde has always made her own needs secondary to anyone else’s.

Not for the first time, Lindsey thinks to herself that Emily running away might have been the best thing that ever happened to them. “Hey,” she says softly to the blonde, who is busy pulling items out of the grocery bags, “come here?” And Emily does.

“What’s up?” she asks, coming to see what the taller woman needs. But Lindsey doesn’t say a word, just reaches for Emily’s hand to pull her closer. And for a moment, they stand like that, face to face, the warm Florida sun falling over their faces as they watch each other’s eyes. Lindsey’s breath comes shallow, and everything about this moment feels like porcelain, so easy to break, so delicate, but so, so precious. Her fingers graze over Emily’s jaw as her eyes drift lower, to the blonde’s mouth, catching how her tongue slips out unconsciously to wet her lips, how in a moment of doubt and insecurity, Emily bites at the corner of her lip. And it’s that hesitation, that slight shadow of uncertainty, that spurs Lindsey forward, until she’s kissing Emily, slanting her lips over the older woman’s mouth and sinking into the feel of her, the taste.

She’s thought about kissing Emily, of course she has. But the longer she’d looked back on their friendship, the deeper she’d looked into herself, Lindsey had realized that that desire, that urge, had been inside of her, between them, all along. And now that it’s happening, as she closes her eyes and slips her fingers up the back of Emily’s neck to tangle in her hair, she realizes that no anticipation, no longing, no dreams of this and more had ever even gotten close to what it would feel like. What she would feel like kissing Emily.

What Emily would feel like kissing her back.

Because Emily is kissing her back. Her mouth is moving against Lindsey’s own, and her tongue slips past the younger woman’s lips before Lindsey can work up the courage to make the move herself. And the soft sounds Emily makes as Lindsey holds her close, as she scratches her fingers gently into the blonde’s hair, they have Lindsey gasping for air, skin tingling with excitement and anticipation.

“Thank you,” Lindsey whispers as she pulls back just enough to see Emily’s eyes, to watch the feelings play across the clear blue. Confusion now, clouding over the joy and the soft look that Lindsey hopes is twin to the emotion she knows is reflected in her own. “For being brave,” the midfielder says as takes Emily’s hand again and squeezes it. “You were brave and I was so, so stupid,” she continues, the words spilling out of her like a confession, “and if you hadn’t left when you did, I don’t think I ever would have had the awakening I needed to admit to myself what I wanted, or even if I could do that, to tell you.”

Emily’s looking up at her, and Lindsey watches the grin that grows as the clouds recede. “Lindsey,” she asks slowly, seriously, hands playing with the soft fabric of the brunette’s shirt, “are you thanking me for your gay awakening?” And she’s already laughing before she can even finish the question, her attempt to play at being serious a complete disaster.

But Lindsey doesn’t mind being laughed at, not by this woman. Not when she knows the ache of the quiet when she’s not around, when they’re not speaking. “You and Lara Croft,” she shrugs nonchalantly, even as the warmth in her heart spills out into her limbs, igniting all the dark places inside of her that had been so afraid for so long. And Lindsey pulls the shorter woman close again, body to body, to kiss over her forehead, her cheeks, until her lips hover over their final target.

“I love you, Dasani,” Lindsey whispers softly, “and I know I broke things between us, and I know that even if I didn’t do it intentionally, I hurt you, have been hurting you, for a long time.” And Emily starts to speak but the taller woman shakes her head. “Just—if you need time or I’m not what you want—“

Emily, closes the distance between them in an instant, pouring everything—years of longing, of love, of hurt, good times and bad, hopes and dreams and prayers—into the kiss. Because she doesn’t need the apology, even if she appreciates the fact—the strength it took—Lindsey needed to give it. She doesn’t need the time Lindsey is going to offer, the instinct to punish herself by waiting as long as she’d made Emily wait.

She doesn’t need any of that. Because she has this. Emily has this—Lindsey standing before her, breakfast and doughnuts on the counter, the warm Florida sun and two full weeks before pre-season starts.

Emily’s not waiting one more minute.

“You’re here,” she whispers against Lindsey’s mouth, and for Emily, the words mean everything. They’re acceptance. They’re promise. They’re hope.

And it only takes Lindsey a second to catch up.

“I’m here,” Lindsey whispers the words, feeling the last shackles of guilt slip away, the last weight of fear fall from her shoulders.

“I’m here,” she whispers. And it’s everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Author's Note:**

> "Down 24," Nathaniel David Knox


End file.
